
Class 

Book 

Copyright N?._ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOStT. 




They had gone about two blocks when they ran 
into a tribe of Indians. — Frontispiece. 



T WI^TTET) 
HI^TTOP^y 

"By 

FRANK C. VOORHIES 

AX/THCfR OF 

" LovJe Letters of an Irish XOoman" 
"Mrs. McYiggs of the Very Old Scratch." 
'"Reflections of "Bridget McJSTulty." Etc. 

Illustrations by 
T. CROMWELL LAWRENCE 




G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 

Publishers Now York 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Tw# Copies Received 

MAR 4 1904 

X. Copyright Entry 
OLASS * XXc. No, 
' COPY 8 



Copyright, 1904, by 
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 



Twisted History. 



Issued March, IQ04 



TO 

D. A. V., 

WHO IS JEALOUS OF THIS BOOK BECAUSE 

SHE CLAIMS THAT I SAT UP 

LATER AT NIGHT WHILE 

WRITING IT THAN I 

DID 

WHILE COURTING HER 



Preface 

AM about to speak plainly, and 
about myself. 

Every one who buys this 

book is my friend — at the time of buying 

it, anyway — and, as it is perfectly proper 

to speak about one's self to friends, I feel 

that you will not think me magniloquent, 

thrasonical or gasconading when you read 

what I have to say in this little foreword. 

I am a historian, a statistician and a 

philanthropist. 

I am : 

A historian, because I can write his- 

7 



PREFACE 



tory the like of which no man has ever 
dared to turn out. Facts and fiction 
are sisters, and as they were strangers 
— according to an old adage — I have 
brought them together at a family re- 
union. 

A statistician, because I have learned, 
by looking over statistics, that there are 
about 80,000,000 people in the United 
States to-day. 

A philanthropist, because I have given 
my brethren a history of the early years 
of their country that will benefit them 
greatly. I can also truthfully say that 
it contains not one word that will harm 
the sturdy minds of "Young America." 

As I have said, I have figured that 



PREFACE 



there are 80,000,000 people in the coun- 
try now. I have also reckoned on the 
saying that the average American family 
consists of five people. 

Now, you must admit that every 
American family should own a history of 
the United States, and to tell the truth, I 
cannot at the present moment think of 
any history that would better adorn your 
bookshelf or parlor table — if you keep 
your precious volumes in the parlor — 
than my own great book, which you now 
have in your hands. 

By dividing 80,000,000 by 5, I find that 
there are 16,000,000 families amongst 
us at the present time. I am planning 
on copies of this book entering at least 



PREFACE 



15,000,000 of these family circles by June 
1st. 

I trust that I may not be disappointed. 

I know you will be pleased with 
"Twisted History," for we guarantee 
it can be readily digested without the aid 
of pepsin. 



TO 



Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Christopher Columbus ... 75 

II. More Wise Boys . .... 37 

III. Raising the Dutch . . . 55 

IV. Reverse English Companies . 71 
V. More English Doings . . . qq 

VI. i>Y//y /Vj*» #«df iS&ftK* 0/" His 

Friends ....... 7/7 

VII. The Lucky Thirteen . . . iji 

VIII. The Beginning of the Scrap . /</(? 

IX. Hot Times 171 

X. Crossing the Ice — and Other 

Stunts 191 



List of Illustrations 



FACING PAGE 



They had gone about two blocks when 
they ran into a tribe of Indians. 
— Frontispiece 2 

When Amerigo returned he was be- 
sieged by the yellow evening news- 
papers 36 

He was compelled to stand on deck 
and bow to the Manhattan Indians 54. 

The fire engines were called out to 
extinguish the " burning gent " . jo 

Landing of the first bunch of Pil- 
grims g8 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Spouted to all those of the Congre- 
gation who had managed to keep 
awake 116 

1 ' Yours of last year just received ' ' . ijo 

Paul Revere flung himself into the 
saddle and rode away 148 

Our old friend George Washington 
started in to make himself felt . . 170 

Washington crossing the Delaware . igo 



14 



Twisted History 



CHAPTER I 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



m 



HE first person and main guy to 
be considered by the historian 
who would do the proper thing 
and give a full and true account of the 
ups and downs of the great United States, 
is Christopher Columbus, the real boy 
who fired the pistol that gave the New 
World its start. Hence I will say a few 
words, in fact, all I know, about Chris, 
the great discoverer. 
15 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Little Chris was born, so they tell me, 
in Genoa, Italy, about 1445, and he grew 
up to be an ambitious lad and mama's 
pet. He went to the public schools until 
he was fourteen and when he left it was, 
I think, at the special request of the sour 
old Board of Education, because little 
Chris spent most of his days playing 
hookey and more time practising sailors' 
knots than he did learning to repeat the 
multiplication tables. On good author- 
ity, I find that Christopher was unable 
at the age of fourteen to name, in order, 
the presidents and vice-presidents of the 
United States, with their dates. He 
knew nothing of George Washington 

and his hatchet, and, in fact, a ten-year- 

16 



TWISTED HISTORY 

old schoolboy of to-day knows more 
about such things than Columbus did at 
twenty. 

After he left school — again at the re- 
quest of the Board of Education — his 
mother, like all doting owners of bright 
boys, had great hopes for him, and 
planned that he should go into busi- 
ness with a banana stand on the corner 
of Twenty-third Street and Vermouth 
Avenue. But not on your life for Chris- 
topher ! This little son of Italy was not 
for the banana trade at all, at all. He 
wanted to go into the sailor business, 
and from daylight to dark he loved to 
dally about the barnacle-beridden docks, 
listening to the sailors repeating their 
17 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Sunday-school lessons. He was always 
daffy when he heard the old salty-look- 
ing mariners talking shop, and one even- 
ing when he came home and cried out, 
" Shiver my timbers," mother dear knew 
it was all off, and that her little Chris- 
topher was cut out for a rover on the 
raging main. 

Soon after that his old man got him a 
job on a sailing vessel, and he proved to 
be such a wise young gazabe, and learned 
so much all in a bunch that he was made 
commander two weeks after he shipped. 
He used to sail to the Canary Islands, 
and people have said that it was he who 
invented the Canary bird ; but for this 
statement, being a faithful chronicler of 



TWISTED HISTORY 

facts, I cannot stand sponsor. He was 
also game enough to sail down the coast 
of Africa several times, never having 
nerve enough, however, to lose sight of 
land, and at one time he came near land- 
ing at Cape Town and exploring the 
kopjes, but the funny names he saw on 
the map put a crimp in his courage, and 
he was scared off. 

One day, while he was loafing around 
Lisbon after a voyage, he decided — as 
do all sailors who feel earth under their 
feet — to liquor up a bit, so he dropped 
into an old tavern that was noted for its 
sosh liquids. The head waiter put him 
down at a table where another fellow was 
sitting, for the place put up a good free 
19 



TWISTED HISTORY 

lunch and was always crowded, and 
Chris, after he had gotten outside of a 
drink or two, began to develop talkitis. 
He soon found that his newly found 
messmate was a wine drummer, who rep- 
resented a firm on the Madeira Islands, 
and before long the two became good and 
chummy. 

Now, there is nothing like alcoholic 
dampness to encourage the growth of 
friendship, and as the wine agent had 
been opening his own brand all the morn- 
ing, just to show the proprietor that it 
was not poison, he was feeling well 
primed. Columbus, being not such a 
much of a tank, was also feeling his oats 
soon after his second high-ball, so about 



TWISTED HISTORY 



r^r -*~~ 



twenty minutes after they met the drum- 
mer and the mariner were holding each 
other's arms and singing " In the Good 
Old Summer Time " to a tune that al- 
lowed of many barber-shop chords. 

From the song it was but a step to 
another proposition. 

" Say, pard," said the drummer, count- 
ing his money again and ordering another 
bottle of his own wine, with glasses for 
two, "are you game?" 

" Nothing else," replied Chris, lighting 
a Turkish cigarette and also lighting on 
a Swiss cheese sandwich that a waiter 
had slipped in front of him. 

" Well, there is a certain dame here in 
town that I want you to meet, and you 



TWISTED HISTORY 

never saw such a looker in all your days. 
She is a beauteous maid for fair, and she 
belongs to the smart set, at that. Her 
old man is governor of the Madeira Is- 
lands, and his pockets bulge with money, 
like unto those all-grafters." 

Columbus looked happy when he heard 
this. He was quite a fusser with the 
ladies, and he was not exactly averse to 
the swell set, of which he had read so 
much in the evening papers. 

" How did you happen to break into 
the upper ten ? " he asked, somewhat sur- 
prised to think that a booze pedler could 
mingle with the swaggers. 

" Why, I'm a wine agent, friend," re- 
plied the human sponge. " Where were 



TWISTED HISTORY 

you brought up ? Don't you know that 
wine agents are the whole cheese ? I 
hope to marry a swell widow with more 
money than brains some day and there- 
after lead cotillons for the high mucka- 
mucks that never work, like some other 
wine agents I know. But there, enough 
of my ambitions. Would you like to 
meet the beaut, or would you not ? Speak 
up, Chris." 

" Sure, Mike," said Christopher, and 
after another drink they were off to meet 
the fair damsel whose father held down 
the chief political job in the Madeira 
Islands. 

The wineseller took our hero around 
to the best hotel in Lisbon, and gave him 
23 



TWISTED HISTORY 

a knockdown to the governor's daughter, 
and it was all up with little Christopher ! 
And it was all up with the little society 
girl ! Love at first sight, too easy — and 
the second look did not dispel the illu- 
sion. 

Columbus immediately fell in love with 
the maiden, and a few days after they 
were married at the ** little church around 
the corner." It was awfully funny, too, 
for about that time Columbus went 
broke, as do all great men at one time or 
another, so he and his bride went to live 
on the Madeira Islands and also on the 
young lady's papa, the Gov. 

Now, for a long time Christopher Co- 
lumbus had had the idea under his hat that 
24 



TWISTED HISTORY 



the earth on which he lived looked like a 
Bartlett pear. Several others thought 
that the world was round, but Columbus 
was, I think, the first to call attention to 
the fact that it resembled a Bartlett pear. 
Just why he made this statement has 
never quite been understood by us his- 
torians, but I have often claimed that it 
was Italian instinct to think of fruit, first 
of all, in making a simile. At any rate, 
he claimed that it would be possible to 
sail to the westward and keep on sailing, 
and, if you did not care what became of 
you or your ship, there was a very good 
chance of your landing on the eastern 
coast of Japan. 

He confided his idea to his father-in- 
25 



TWISTED HISTORY 

law, the governor, and, as the old man 
liked Chris, he said he thought there 
might be something in the scheme, but, 
as both he and Columbus were away up 
on the tenth floor of their uppers and 
had but a few simoleons, or whatever 
kind of money they had on the Madei- 
ras, they were unable to equip an expedi- 
tion and take a chance for Japan. 

Day by day Chris became more and 
more daffy on the subject, and he was 
nutty to get a boat and sail somewhere 
toward the west. Finally, he could stand 
the strain no longer, so he went back 
home to Genoa and, after going to the 
Columbus house and giving the family 

the glad hand, he rushed down to the 

26 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Board of Trade rooms and laid his plans 
before the city council. He begged them 
to advance the money for men and ships, 
and he also promised to present his 
home town with any old thing he discov- 
ered, but it was of no use. They said 
he was bughouse, and there was nothing 
doine from the Genoa selectmen in the 
line of a cash appropriation. So Chris- 
topher shook a day-day. 

From there he went to Portugal, and 
explained his proposed stunt to the king 
of that skinny strip of land. His majesty 
was moved by the earnestness of Colum- 
bus, and told him he was all right ; but 
when it came to putting up the ready 

money to fit out the fresh-air excursion 

27 



TWISTED HISTORY 

the wise old potentate stumbled and fell 
down. Once more was our hero up 
against the cold eye. 

After his turn down in Portugal, he 
visited Spain, where almost all the money 
was (then), but as Spain was at war she 
needed all the real cash she had on 
hand, so Columbus had to smoke his 
dope and dream of his future during 
seven long weary years before the king 
and queen would listen to his fairy tale. 
When he did get them on a string, he 
pumped hot air for all he was worth, and 
his con talk went. They said they were 
willing to take a chance, so, in order to 
raise enough wherewithal to do the trick 

up in proper shape, they called in Moses 

28 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Cohen, a pawnbroker, and in return for 
the royal paste jewels received a good- 
sized check and a pink ticket. Then 
Columbus and Spain drew up a contract 
and arrangements were made for the 
trip. 

On August 3, 1492, Columbus with his 
three dinky fishing boats set out for 
America amid a cluster of great rejoic- 
ings, consisting of many shouts, much 
music, and a beautiful display of Pain's 
fireworks. 

Columbus was in high spirits as the 
ships broke away from the dock, but as 
days ran into days, and weeks came troll- 
ing along with no land in sight, and no 

prospects, the crew began to get sore. 
29 



TWISTED HISTORY 



Columbus's high spirits began to fall off 
and take a drop, and the fury of the men 
began to fall on and take a rise. A fluc- 
tuating stock market was never one, two, 
three, with Columbus and his crew. The 
sailors planned and plotted against the 
great discoverer, and threatened to toss 
him into the briny for the sharks to nibble 
on ; but somehow Chris managed to hang 
on and hold them down until one morn- 
ing, about two o'clock, the tar who was on 
the dog watch, whatever that is, sighted 
land. Hurrah ! He ran down and told 
the crew, and Columbus gave him a new, 
crisp five-dollar bill, for he had promised 
to do the grand for the first bright-eye 
who sighted America. 



30 



TWISTED HISTORY 

At first Columbus thought they were 
just off Coney Island, but on closer in- 
spection the dirt they had spotted proved 
to be San Salvador. About six a.m., they 
hove to and landed, and after planting 
the Spanish flag, which never took root, 
they mixed a few Scotch high-balls, and 
drank to the health of Spain, America, 
and themselves. Then they lit their ci- 
gars, and started out to take a look at 
the real estate they had discovered. 

They had gone about two blocks when 
they ran into a tribe of Indians. It 
looked like a wild west show at first, but 
after a second look the newcomers de- 
cided that the bunch of painted warriors 
were the real thing, so Columbus selected 
31 



TWISTED HISTORY 

a few of the reddest redskins to take 
back home as samples. 

The Spaniards collected a lot of speci- 
mens truly American, such as gold, In- 
dians, etc., and went back to Spain. 
That they were the whole thing when 
they arrived home goes without saying, 
and Columbus had six offers to go into 
vaudeville, at fabulous salaries, but he 
was too modest to accept, or if he did, 
we have no proof of it, and I, as a truth- 
ful historian, would not claim that he 
did. 

After that Columbus made two more 
voyages to the New World, but his first 
one was the most successful. 

In 1506 he died, having done, in his 
32 



TWISTED HISTORY 

life, three great things — accomplished the 
feat of getting money out of royalty ; 
performed the wonderful trick of stand-" 
ing an egg on end ; and finding a home 
for the Irish. 

Give a triple cheer for Chris. 



33 




When Amerigo returned he was besieged by the 
yellow evening newspapers. 



CHAPTER II 

MORE WISE BOYS 

HILE Columbus was doing the 
grand for Spain, and making 
discoveries right and left that 
caused Ferdy, the king, to throw out his 
chest and inflate his cranium until his 
6y% crown was three sizes too small for 
him, the other nations, having heard of 
Chris and his wonderful lamps that could 
spot land at three thousand miles, began 
to get woozy, and cast the green eye on 
the haughty Spaniard. Each country 
wanted to add new real estate to its pos- 

37 



TWISTED HISTORY 

sessions, and seeing that sail boats were 
pretty safe crafts in which to roam the 
brine, they easily found skippers who 
were tired of fishing for mackerel, and 
more than glad to hunt for new land that 
had never been touched. 

Portugal hired a fellow by the name of 
Vasco da Gama to sail around the salty 
waters to see what he could run up against, 
and, as luck would have it, the wind car- 
ried him around the Cape of Good Hope 
and landed him in India. Here he estab- 
lished trading posts, and in less than a 
year or so all the Portugeezers were eat- 
ing chutney on their beefsteaks, and call- 
ing it an Indian meal. Few historians 
know that this is the derivation of the 
38 



TWISTED HISTORY 

words " Indian meal," and I am the one 
who discovered it ; but do not think I am 
boasting, gentle readers, for never a boast 
from me, b'gosh. 

In the same year that Vasco da Gama 
did his Indian stunt, England decided to 
get into the game of " ride and seek," and 
sent out a ship under John Cabot, and 
over the waves, to find a northwest pas- 
sage to India. Now this passage comes 
high on the map, and it is so cold that 
Cabot could not have it, so he landed 
on Cape Breton, wherever that may be, 
sailed around for about nine hundred 
miles — and that is about all he ever did 
do, so we can well let little Johnny slide 
without much further mention. The king 

39 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of England, Henry VII., said to himself, 
one morning after breakfast and a Mar- 
tini, "When Johnny comes marching 
home he will have with him a northwest 
passage to India. Then we will be much 
hot stuff with our short cut." But as 
John was a quitter, and gave up too soon, 
he came back empty handed, so what is 
the use of wasting time over him ? 

S'long, Cabbie ! 

The next wise boy we have to consider 
was, in my opinion, the peach of them 
all. He was a discoverer and a news- 
paper man all rolled into one, and if 
that does not make an up-to-date combi- 
nation then I am not a great historian. 

Amerigo Vespucci was the hero I mean, 
40 



TWISTED HISTORY 

and he had a nose for news that was 
more than keen. Like the millionaire, 
labor leader and actress of to-day, he 
had things named for him, so he did. 

Amerigo was a dago hailing from Flor- 
ence, and, like Chris Columbus, he hired 
out to Spain. Finding it did not pay 
him, however, to hang up his hat and 
stick to a job controlled by the steam- 
heated bull-fighters, he quit 'em quick, 
and soon after got next to a position with 
Portugal. For this country he made sev- 
eral trips across the " big pond," as the 
plebeians of to-day call the Atlantic, and, 
being a warm proposition, he landed on 
the tropical shores of South America 
each time he crossed. 
41 



TWISTED HISTORY 

On the way back from his last cruise 

he spent most of his spare moments in 

writing a " feature story " on all the 

great things he had seen and done. He 

was not the most modest thing that ever 

happened, and the way he laid the sugar 

icing all over himself would have made a 

wedding cake look foolish. Columbus 

showed the way to the westward, but, to 

judge from Vespucci's article, he was the 

hunky boy to whom all the credit was 

due. It was he who did the real thing 

in the discovery line, and compared with 

the results of his voyages those of 

Columbus looked like a dime and four 

nickels. Chris was the original package, 

but Vespucci was the straight goods re- 
42 



TWISTED HISTORY 

tailed over the counter at four hundred 
per cent, profit. 

When Amerigo returned from his last 
trip, he was besieged by the yellow even- 
ing newspapers that were then issuing 
about thirteen extras per day on account 
of the " New World Discoveries," and 
each one offered him a larger check than 
the one before, to have the right to 
publish, exclusively, his copyrighted 
article. Finally he sold it to the 
" Strassburg Gazette," and the night it 
was published there also appeared in the 
editorial columns of the same paper a 
suggestion by the editor, that the new 
country that had just been added to the 
map be called America, in honor of their 

43 



TWISTED HISTORY 

correspondent. This suggestion flew 
around like wildfire and caught the 
public fancy at once, and as a result the 
explorer-reporter was responsible for the 
name of our great and glorious country. 

Hurrah! Hats off ! 

The Spaniards realized that they were 
doing great deeds, so they tried to keep 
up the good work. Ponce de Leon, one 
of their representatives, who was well up 
on their salary list, governor of Porto 
Rico and president of the " Cuban 
Cigarette Trust," while making a voy- 
age, landed on the coast of Florida on 
Easter Sunday, in time for early mass. 
On his way home from church with some 
real Americans — or Indians, as they were 

44 



TWISTED HISTORY 

called then — he was told of a wonderful 
spring that was located many miles, and 
several moons, to the northward. 

" Ponce, old boy," said one of the 
Indians, who was particularly friendly 
because de Leon had passed him a rank 
five-cent cigar, " Ponce, you are a friend 
of mine, and I want to put you wise to 
something that makes one of those patent 
medicines you see advertised in Chicago 
monthlies look like knockout drops. I 
know of a spring that will make you feel 
like a two-year-old and look like a fellow 
done over by Dr. Woodbury. It is the 
sportiest thing in the U. S., and it is 
called Saratoga Springs. It is the place 
where all the flashy nouveaux riches 

45 



TWISTED HISTORY 

gather each year and spend their coin. 
Take a chance at it, Ponce, old man, and 
go back to Spain feeling twenty years 
younger." 

Well, this made de Leon do a bit of 
guessing. Nothing was too much to 
expect from the New World, and had he 
been told that pesos grew on trees in 
New Jersey, he would have believed it 
when, as a matter of fact, mosquitoes 
were the only things raised in that State 
at that time. 

11 That's just what I have been look- 
ing for," replied Ponce to Booze-in-the- 
Throat, the Indian, as he lit a fresh cigar. 
" I do not mind telling you that I have 

been somewhat of a sport in my time, 

4 6 



TWISTED HISTORY 

and I now feel sort of rickety — gin 
rickety — ha! ha ! If I can get into con- 
dition to start all over again, I will do it ; 
so me for the rejuvenating spring, in a 
minute. You can gamble on that." 

So off hustled Ponce de Leon for 
Saratoga, but as it was out of season 
when he arrived, he found nothing in 
the recuperating line doing ; so his get- 
young-quick trip proved itself N. G., as 
did many another trip of the nervy 
adventurers of those days. 

About this time there appeared an- 
other great globe-trotter, who made a 
name for himself, although his parents 
had already made the name of Vasco 
Nunez de Balboa for him. He was a 

47 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Spaniard — he could not help it — and 
soon after he struck America he was told 
by the Indians that there was a great 
ocean to the westward. That settled 
Vasco. He decided in a minute, accord- 
ing to his well-regulated Waterbury, to 
find the new ocean. 

For some reason or other all the 
limited express trains to the Pacific coast 
were sidetracked — some of us historians 
think there was a strike in the Pullman 
shops, but we are not sure — and Balboa 
was compelled to hoof it clear across the 
continent to San Francisco. Now let 
me tell you, gentle readers, that it is a 
good long walk to the town of the 

Chinese, and if you do not believe me 

4 8 



TWISTED HISTORY 

ask some of the lean, lanky, gray-haired, 
smooth-faced actors that you meet on 
Broadway every day. They will tell you 
that it is a fierce tramp, and as Balboa 
did not follow railroad tracks laid out 
by expert engineers, but cut through 
corn fields and climbed over mountains, 
you can guess what a hard job he had to 
reach the Cliff House. 

After biting his way with swords 
through hostile tribes, he finally reached 
Sutro Heights, from which he was able 
to see the broad Pacific. He went in 
swimming right away and thus showed 
his right to call the great new ocean 
a possession of Spain. " Hurrah!" he 
telegraphed to the king of Spain, "I have 

49 



TWISTED HISTORY 

found an ocean that makes the Atlantic 
look like a raindrop. What shall I do 
with it?" 

After this great pool of water had 
been found by Balboa, the Spaniards 
decided to use it ; so they sent out 
another yachtsman by the name of 
Magellan. He crossed the Atlantic, 
rounded Cape Horn and sailed away 
over the Pacific until he came to the 
East Indies. From there his crew, for 
he was killed by a trolley car on one 
of the islands, sailed around Africa, 
back to Spain. All this took more than 
eighty days — but it was a trip around 
the world. 

So you can now see, gentle readers, 



TWISTED HISTORY 

what a tough time our forefathers had 
to prove the earth was round. But 
they did it, and we Americans are the 
result of their hard work. We are proud 
of having been discovered so soon, and 
just think what a terrible thing it would 
have been had our discovery been put 
off for five hundred years. It is in- 
teresting to conjecture what each one 
of us might have been, had such been 
the case. Instead of being Americans 
with healthy appetites for pie and good 
old thirsts for anything we can get, 
some of us would be Frenchmen, eating 
snails and drinking absinthe ; Germans, 
eating sauerkraut and drinking beer; 
Englishmen, eating beef and drinking 
51 



TWISTED HISTORY 

ale, or Italians, eating macaroni and 
drinking Chianti. 

How happy we should be! 

So much for the original discoveries, 
readers. 



52 




He was compelled to stand on deck and bow to 
the Manhattan Indians. 



CHAPTER III 

RAISING THE DUTCH 

HILE Spain, France and Portu- 
gal were sending out ships and 
men, helter-skelter, on discover- 
ing trips, there was a certain bouquet of 
rotund, florid Dutch brewers who were 
quietly reading accounts of what was be- 
ing done in the New World. The ship- 
ping news of the Amsterdam Hofbrau 
was the most popular department of the 
paper, and as it was in charge of the 
bright young reporter whose name was 
Hans — I believe in putting in details 

55 



TWISTED HISTORY 

that other historians leave out — who 
knew the value of a feature story, 
whether it was true or merely good read- 
ing, it often contained very flowery stuff 
and news that incited the brewers to 
action. They read about the great stunts 
that were being done in the U. S. and 
they soon found out that the exploring 
bee was buzzing in their Dutch bonnets. 
Now business was pretty good in Hol- 
land and the merchants of that place 
were anxious to dilute the whole earth 
with their beer, and as Magellan had 
proved the earth was round they knew 
that they could sell several quarts of the 
hop mixture before the whole world was 
covered. 

56 



TWISTED HISTORY 

This being: well known, a bunch of 
them got together and had a meeting, 
and during the confab one of them arose 
and said : 

"Say, vellers, ve are making a lods of 
money, bud vy nod some more make? 
Hey?" 

"Vy nod?" yelled the rest of the 
crowd. 

"Dot's vat I say. 'Vy nod?' Und I 
haf a idea vat I vant to explanation. Der 
vay to der East H indies is a easiness to 
find, as I dink, und I say dot ve hire 
some veller vat don't gif a hurrah vetter 
he geds boatwrecked or nit und ged him 
to find der vay. Yust dink vat a skinch 
id vill be to ged our beer introduction 

57 



TWISTED HISTORY 

indo der East Hindies vere der vetter is 
such a hodness dot eferyboty has a con- 
tinuation performance thirstiness. Oh, id 
vould be like finding money." 

"Sure, Mike," yelled a voice from the 
crowd, "led's do id." 

After much talking and consulting in 
fractured English — for these Dutchmen 
were the originators of the Weberfield 
dialect — it was decided to form a trust 
called the East India Company, and one 
Hendrik Hudson was chosen to take a 
chance at discovering new markets for 
the liquid products of Holland. He was 
given a ship called "The Half Moon," 
and in this he was to sail away and hunt 
for that northwestern passage to the East 

5S 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Indies that was so often sought for but 
never found. 

In passing I take the liberty — which is 
allowed all competent historians — of in- 
terpolating an opinion that has long been 
nestling beneath my sparse and gray 
locks. It seems to me that the name of 
the boat sent out upon such an errand as 
I feel "The Half Moon" was should have 
been named "The Full Moon." What 
do you think about it ? Facts are facts, 
however, and such being the case, my 
opinion in this matter is without weight, 
although it has a flavor, so to speak, has 
it not, readers? 

In 1609 Henny set sail, and as the 
ice forbade him the northwestern passage, 
59 



TWISTED HISTORY 

he decided to have a look at the New 
World anyway; so he struck the U. S. 
square in the harbor of New York and 
sailed up the river that bore his name. 
He was somewhat surprised to find the 
beautiful waterway named after him, and 
as he passed the Palisades on his way to 
Albany, he was compelled to stand on 
deck all the while and bow to the Man- 
hattan Indians that were sitting on the 
rocks and cheering the namesake of the 
Hudson River. As he told his sister 
afterwards, it was the proudest moment 
of his life when he saw those decorated 
Americans perched like birds, feathers 
and all, reclining over the beautiful land- 
scape, waving their red blankets in their 
60 



TWISTED HISTORY 

enthusiasm, until the whole scene re- 
sembled an animated, impressionistic 
sunset. 

How's that, readers? 

But I must not allow my beautiful 
thoughts to run at random with my pen. 
I must get me back to Hendrik and tell 
posterity what he managed to do before 
he died. 

After Hudson had seen all he cared to 
on the Hudson River he sailed back to 
the old sod once again, landing in Eng- 
land and sending his report to the Dutch 
from that place. The brewers were sore 
because he had not found the route to 
India, so he flung aside the East India 
colors and shipped under the Union Jack. 

61 



TWISTED HISTORY 

All his following voyages were made for 
England. But he never amounted to 
much except to get things named after 
him, so we can well let him drop. Thud! 
That for you, Hendrik ! 

But the Dutch did not give up their 
hold on the New World. They kept 
their eyes on two sites — one was New 
York and the other was Milwaukee — 
although little was said about the latter 
until later. However, I know for a fact 
that several Dutchmen decided to make 
Milwaukee famous about four hundred 
years ago — but more of this in another 
chapter. 

A company was formed in Holland, 

called the New Netherland Company, and 

62 



TWISTED HISTORY 

they settled in New York, somewhere on 
Sixth Avenue, I have been told, and 
they did lots of business with the Indians 
that could always be found in that vicin- 
ity. In passing I might say that Indians 
can be found to this day on Sixth Avenue, 
anywhere between Twenty-third and 
Thirtieth Streets. Of course, this is a 
digression, but it is a fact, none the less. 
The Dutch flocked to New York, or 
New Amsterdam, as they called the big 
burg, and planted corn, cattle and all 
sorts of other vegetables until the colony 
was one big farm, and a thriving one at 
that. When they first started into the 
colonization business the Indians were 
somewhat leery of them, but the little 

63 



TWISTED HISTORY 

round Hollanders soon changed this con- 
dition to "beery," and that meant friend- 
liness. 

In order to induce men to occupy New 
Netherland, the company's directors met 
one evening in Von Zweibach's palm 
garden and decided to allow any of its 
members who should buy a certain num- 
ber of building lots or abandoned farms 
from the Indian real-estate agents, and 
form a colony of at least fifty persons, 
the right to run the township thus formed, 
with almost absolute control. Thus fifty 
sports might form a colony, and box- 
ine matches to a finish could be held 
within their precincts, or they could keep 
open on Sunday without sandwiches; or 
64 



TWISTED HISTORY 

if fifty of a sanctimonious nature desired 
to have prayer meeting each evening and 
six gatherings of the Ladies' Aid Society 
per week, they could do so. The State 
would never register the smallest kick. 
In fact, things were freer then and there 
than they are now and here in this so- 
called "free country." By the way, if 
any of my readers thinks this is really a 
free country, let him take a little vacation 
in Atlantic City or Saratoga. If he finds 
anything "free" in either of these places, 
he would do me a favor if he would let 
me know; it would be worth a trip just 
to go and take advantage of it. 

The Indians did a flourishing land- 
office business and their terms — one cold 
65 



TWISTED HISTORY 

stein down and two steins per week until 
paid for, foam off for cash — suited the 
colonists down to the ground. They 
settled on each side of the Hudson and 
even bought land down in Connecticut — 
just why, I have never been able to find 
out. 

And now you must have a clear idea 
of what our Dutch ancestors accomplished 
in the dim past. They were quiet, in- 
dustrious ancestors and were responsible 
for several very important persons and 
things. Almost all the big millionaire 
families of to-day can blame their thrifty, 
Dutch, great-great-great-grandpas for the 
bundles of wherewithal they now pos- 
sess. 

66 



TWISTED HISTORY 

The inhabitants of New Netherland 
were directly responsible for the Holland 
Dames, Holland Gin and the Holland 
House, New York's ultra- fashionable 
hostelrie, whatever that may mean. 

You can't beat the Dutch ! 



67 




The fire engines were called out to extinguish the 
"burning gent. " 



CHAPTER IV 

REVERSE ENGLISH COMPANIES 




OW for a few words about Eng- 
land's stabs at the western 
hemisphere. I have not said 
much about them, up to this time, for 
the very reason that, up to this time, they 
had not done very much. Sir Walter 
Raleigh, an Elizabethan dude who never 
worked two whole hours in his life, came 
over in 1564. He landed on North 
Carolina and tried to start a colony, but 
all his attempts were fruitless, and when 
he died, by the help of an axe, he had 
71 



TWISTED HISTORY 

really accomplished little else than to 
learn to hit the pipe — for it was he who 
traded vices with the Indians. He taught 
them to enjoy a hot toddy and a Scotch 
high-ball, and they reciprocated with a 
warm bowl of Virginia cut plug. 

He was entranced with the weed and 
after his return from America made a 
great sensation, one day, by strolling 
down the Strand puffing away at an aged 
corncob. They tell me the fire engines — 
Departments 4 and 6 — were called out to 
extinguish the ''burning gent," but of this 
I am not sure, so I do not put it down 
fbr a fact. I merely inject it here as an 
anecdote, as all historians do now and 

then, in order to make their work seem 

72 



TWISTED HISTORY 

more interesting. History, dear friends, 
is a hard thing to write — not that I want 
to pat myself gently on the right shoulder 
and tell myself I am a wonder because I 
can write history — and an occasional bit 
of fiction helps to brighten pages that are 
otherwise deep and tiresome. It makes 
no difference how true an anecdote may 
or may not be, we have to dish out a few 
for you in order to make you say, at the 
reading club — if you are a lady — " I love 
to read history. It is so full of little 
stories." Some of these stories may read 

like press-agent stuff, but now I find 

I am wandering, and a historian must 
never wander. The beaten paths are for 
him, so I will hie me back to the Eng- 

73 



TWISTED HISTORY 

lish and their deeds, immediately, if not 
sooner, as the Podunk humorist would 
say. 

As I said before, the English never did 
very much in the discovering line for the 
U. S. — or any other line, as far as that is 
concerned — until we began to issue gold 
bonds. The other countries, such as 
Spain, Portugal and Holland, pushed the 
discoveries while the English did the 
resting. 

In 1606 King James I. of England 
granted rights to two English companies 
that were formed to resemble the Dutch 
companies, to hold and rule over and do 
any old thing they felt like doing, under 
his thumb, in the land between Cape 
74 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Fear and the St. Croix River. He 
marked out the boundaries on an old 
Rand, McNally atlas that had been 
knocking around the palace for many 
moons and he gave the northern portion 
to a bunch he called the Plymouth Com- 
pany and the southern part to the Lon- 
don Company. The whole crowd was 
incorporated under the laws of Maine, 
which had been discovered by an Eng- 
lishman, bah Jove, by the name of Pop- 
ham, some years prior, and called the 
Virginia Company — and there you have 
the story of the combine in a nutshell. 

King Jim was a sort of a hardshelled 
crab and he was anxious to add to his 
power. He had had a religious tussle 



TWISTED HISTORY 

for a year or so and lost lots of votes on 
that account, so he thought a few com- 
panies such as the two he had sent to the 
U. S. would bring him in a revenue that 
would let him stand on his own feet once 
again and in his own shoe leather. In 
other words, he was on his uppers for fair 
and here was a chance to make good, for 
the New World contained all sorts of 
riches, according to popular opinion, al- 
though not even the Standard Oil Com- 
pany was dreamed of in those days. 

In 1607 the first English settlement in 
America was made. The London Com- 
pany sent out three vessels under the 
command of Captain Christopher New- 
port, and it was their intention to land on 
76 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Roanoke Island. But intentions in those 
days were about as certain as is the col- 
ored vote of present times. A storm 
came along toward the finale of the trip, 
and instead of landing on Roanoke they 
were tickled to death to blow into Chesa- 
peake Bay, and there, under the shelter- 
ing lees, whatever they may be, enjoy 
safety, rest and Baltimore oysters. They 
entered the bay with a suddenness such as 
only a more than rigid breeze can furnish 
to sailing craft, but they managed to name 
the two capes they passed as they came 
through the narrows. So it was that 
Capes Henry and Charles were named 
on the fly, so to speak, after the two fly 
sons of Jim the Initial, King of England. 

77 



TWISTED HISTORY 

After they had gotten well into quiet 
waters they had time to look about them, 
and they found that they were just off the 
entrance of a nice young river that had 
never been named, so they sailed up this, 
enjoying the scenery that was sprinkled 
on either side. As this voyage was a 
sort of a naming expedition, and each 
of the members of the party was anx- 
ious to sidle into the heart of the king, 
with the hope that that personage would 
make him governor, sooner or later, of 
the colony they were about to establish, 
they named everything they saw after the 
royal family. The first river they used 
in the U. S. they called the James, and 
although the king never touched water 



TWISTED HISTORY 

himself for any other purpose than bath- 
ing, he was very chesty when he thought 
of or spoke of the sinuous body of " aqua 
impura " that was to hold his cog for all 
its damp life. He was a peculiar sort of 
a king, this fellow, and loved to be " it." 
If a cheap cigar had been named after 
him and advertised in all the monthly 
magazines, and if three-sheets, telling all 
about him and the fragrant puffs that could 
be extracted from the " King James 
Stogie," had been pasted on every vacant 
fence in town, he would have enjoyed it 
hugely. He was a spectacular gent and 
no mistake, and the members of the Lon- 
don Company were wise to this fact, too. 
They knew their game, and played it well. 

79 



TWISTED HISTORY 

On May 13 they landed on the banks 
of the James and started to fix up a burg 
that they called Jamestown — also in honor 
of their king — and after they got fairly 
settled they opened a sealed letter that 
Jim had given them with the instructions 
that they should not open the prize pack- 
age until they arrived at their final stop- 
ping place. In the envelope were the 
names of the seven men who were to act 
as council for the new colony. The pre- 
sident was found to be a Mr. Wingfield, 
who had not left his stateroom during the 
whole voyage from the old country until 
smooth water was found in the Chesa- 
peake, and among the members of the 

city's selectmen were Chris Newport, after 

80 



TWISTED HISTORY 

whom several towns were named, prin- 
cipally a gaudy watering-place that is 
much affected by people with more money 

than , and Bartholomew Gosnold, 

popularly known as Barty, and Captain 
John Smith, particularly known to the 
people of to-day as a comic-opera charac- 
ter. 

Very few of the London Company had 
ever been guilty of manual labor in Eng- 
land. Most of them had been "gents of 
leisure," to use a Bowery expression, and 
when they found that gold nuggets could 
not be picked up in the gutters of James- 
town's streets they were the possessors of 
much embarrassment, but they showed 
good nerve. They fell to work and cut 



TWISTED HISTORY 

down trees to be used for houses in which 
they were to live. The fall was so deep 
and steep that it fractured the pride of 
a lot of them, but they soon found that 
Jamestown was not London — no one 
could be bought to do the work of 
another, so busy was each doing his own 
little chores in the line of raising a roof 
over his head. As a result, every fellow 
had to wield the axe and lead the plough 
for his own little self. 

Their first summer was a hard one. 
The peninsula on which Jamestown was 
situated was about as healthy as are 
the flats around Jersey City. It was 
damp, mosquitoey and malarial. The 

broom of pestilence swept away half of 

82 



TWISTED HISTORY 

the colony during the hot months, and if 
the Indians had not provided the other 
half with handouts now and then, they 
would have starved to death. As it was, 
the largest portion of the city of James- 
town was a graveyard in less than a year 
after the London Company arrived. 

The Indians were, for the most part, 
very friendly, but they had never forgot- 
ten some of the wrongs they had suffered 
at the hands of Raleigh in years gone by. 
Sir Walt had the burning of Indian vil- 
lages and the slaughter of innocent red- 
skins down to a fine art, and he was 
never happy unless he was making some 
poor savage dance under the stimulus of 
hot lead. He ever held his torch ready 
83 



TWISTED HISTORY 

to start their wigwams toward ashes. 
Whenever he travelled over a stretch of 
Indian country he always left behind him 
a trail of losses for the fire insurance com- 
panies ; and the Indians — well, they were 
getting confounded (?) tired of it. When 
the London Company had come along 
they were, naturally enough, still some- 
what under the influence of their ancient 
soreness, and looked upon the newcomers 
as another bunch of arson and murder 
propagators. 

Some enterprising historian, knowing 
the feelings of the Indians toward the 
white strangers in those days, has in- 
vented a pretty and popular anecdote 
that I will repeat, in my own words, for 
8 4 



TWISTED HISTORY 

the edification and amusement of my mil- 
lions of readers. No history would be 
complete without this romantic tale, and 
as I mean that this, my great life work, 
shall be the most complete resume of 
daring deeds and direful doings that has 
ever been penned and retailed to the 
great and appreciative public, I am wal- 
lowing among the cobwebs of antiquity 
and — there, there, pardon me for wander- 
ing again, but I should have been a stout, 
well-fed novelist rather than a lean, half- 
fed historian, so that I could paint beau- 
tiful word pictures. Enough, however ; 
let us return to the romantic tale I am 
about to untwist. 

The leading characters of this melo- 

S5 



TWISTED HISTORY 

drama are Captain John Smith, con- 
sidered, since the spread of the story of 
his life, the real leader of the Jamestown 
colony; Powhatan, a crusty Indian chief 
who plays the part of villain in the story; 
and Pocohontas, his beautiful daughter. 
I have seen many red squaws in my time, 
from Colorado to the State of Washing- 
ton, but never in all my experience have 
I ever seen a looker among them — the 
other side of the street for me when one 
of these comes along — but they say Pocy 
had the goods so far as looks were con- 
cerned, and to keep up interest in the 
story I myself must claim this as gospel 
truth. 'Twixt you and me, nevertheless, 
I doubt it. 

86 



TWISTED HISTORY 

It seems that our old friend John 
Smith was an ardent hunter. If he was 
not hunting for trouble he was crazy to 
look for game. He loved to carry a 
heavy blunderbuss through the under- 
brush and with it shoot a stray squirrel 
or bear, now and again, and on one oc- 
casion whilst he and two of his friends 
were skirmishing through the woods, too 
far from their own little huts, looking for 
something to bag, they were found and 
collared by some Indians who straight- 
way took them as trophies of the hunt to 
their chief Powhatan, the sourball. When 
old Pow saw the white triumvirate he was 
very sore indeed, and before you could 
wink three times he had sent two of them 



TWISTED HISTORY 

over the range to the happy hunting 
grounds. He was quite a sportsman him- 
self and he liked to see an even score in 
any game, and as the death tally, up to 
that time, was about 800 to 1 in favor 
of the English, Powhatan was proud to 
think that he was about to reduce it to 
800 to 4. 

After he had done away with the two 
companions of Smith he centred his at- 
tention on the captain. He had a beauti- 
fully carved stone brought to him and 
this he planned to use as a pillow for 
Smitty's head. He made that gentleman 
assume a reclining position and place his 
block upon the block, thus to facilitate 
the act of decapitation. When all ar- 

S3 



TWISTED HISTORY 

rangements had been made and he held, 
raised above him, the axe that was about 
to separate John and his life forevermore 
— just at this moment, mind you, in order 
to make the scene the more melodramatic 
— his beautiful daughter, Pocohontas, ran 
down the steps of the piazza that sur- 
rounded the " Powhatan Wigwam " and 
cried out in a musical voice, "Papa, oh, 
papa, do not disconnect the apex of Mr. 
Smith from its foundation. In other 
words, old man, spare his life for the 
sake of your little daught." And with 
these words flowing freely from her ruby 
lips she fell at the side of Smith and en- 
circled his neck with her plump, blushing 

arms, weeping profusely, until the tears 

8 9 



TWISTED HISTORY 

trickled off her long black lashes and fell 
with little thuds upon the bosom of Mr. 
Smith's boiled shirt. 

Gee ! It was heartrending. Honestly, 
it was. 

When Powhatan saw this advertise- 
ment of emotion on the part of his only 
child he lowered his axe and said, in his 
deep bass voice, " Fine stage business, 
my child. Timed to the moment. Let 
me think for a second or two." So he 
wrapped himself in thought and his 
blanket, and thunk. 

Just what he thunk we do ixOt know, 

but I have my theories. He no doubt 

said to himself, " Here is a chance to 

marry my daughter into English aristoc- 

9 o 



TWISTED HISTORY 

racy. I am an American and naturally I 
would like to see my daughter hitched to 
a foreigner. Why not let this little ro- 
mance find its culmination in an unhappy 
marriage? Give the reporters a chance." 
And with that he told Smith to arise, and 
the scene that followed between the beau- 
tiful red princess and the pardoned cap- 
tain — well, it must be acted, for I can 
never describe it, staid and unemotional 
historian that I am. 

At any rate, after this episode, Pow- 
hatan was friendly toward the English, and 
Smith introduced Pocohontas among the 
upper ten of Jamestown. He never pop- 
ped the vital question himself, but a fel- 
low named John Rolfe, who wanted to 
91 



TWISTED HISTORY 

get his name in this history, did, and she 
took him on the spot. "All Johns look 
alike to me," she said to herself, " and if 
I cannot have John Smith give me John 
Rolfe." And so it was that Mr. and Mrs. 
Rolfe happened. Her husband took her 
to England, and in London she made 
quite a hit. She was the first married lady 
of a red complexion that had ever been in 
that town, and, being a novelty, she was 
considered the real thing, just as are nov- 
elties in New York society to-day. Buf- 
falo Bill's Wild West Show has since taken 
her place in the hearts of London society. 

And that is about all there is to the 
tale. What do you think of it ? 

After this little incident matters went 



TWISTED HISTORY 

from bad to worse with the Virginia col- 
ony. They starved and they were op- 
pressed. A man by the name of Lord 
Delaware was sent over and he ruled as 
though he were a king. The people 
loved him about as much as they loved 
malaria, and at that time there was no 
cure for either, so you can appreciate the 
simile — if you have had malaria, and I 
hope you have not. 

To speak frankly, Lord Delaware was 
a lobster. 

About this time two things happened 
that were O.K. for Virginia. Tobacco 
found a ready sale in England and the 
colonists raised it for foreign consump- 
tion. That's number one. 

93 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Number two was the new governor, 
Mr. Yeardley, who was sent out by a new 
faction that was against the king. This 
new man was a corker, to use an expres- 
sion of one of the colonists, and he al- 
lowed the people to make their own laws. 
If they wanted a beer after eleven p.m. or 
on Sundays they could vote "Yes " with- 
out any king to bother them. In other 
words everything was local option. 

About this time a Dutch vessel came 
up the James River with a carload of 
negroes fresh from Africa and the Dutch- 
men sold the whole bunch to the colo- 
nists at bargain prices. This was the 
beginning of slavery in the U. S. 

And now, gentle readers, you have 

94 



TWISTED HISTORY 

learned about all there is to know about 
the London Company and the Virginia 
Colony, so I will shut the door of this 
chapter with a slam. 

That's all. 

Bang ! 



95 




o* 




Landing of the first bunch of Pilgrims. 




CHAPTER V 

MORE ENGLISH DOINGS 

ART of this chapter concerns 
the Pilgrims, as they were 
known in those days, which 
word in modern, up-to-date parlance 
means nothing more nor less than ho- 
boes, or wanderers. 

In England the Church of England 
held all the power. If you did not be- 
long to this church, agree with their 
views and pay your pew rent regularly 
you were subject to fines or imprison- 
ment. In other words, the police courts 

ILofC. " 



TWISTED HISTORY 

and the churches stood in with each 
other. 

Now, as was natural, amongst such a 
crowd of population as England then 
claimed, some of the people objected to 
this tyrannic rule of the church, and as a 
result they pulled away from it. On this 
account they were nicknamed " Sepa- 
ratists," and they left England because of 
" oppression," as they called it. The 
"Separatists" first emigrated to Holland, 
and there started up churches according 
to their own views, but before long they 
concluded that if they remained in that 
country, all their grandchildren would 
talk nothing but Dutch. That did not 
please them, so they looked for new 

IOO 



TWISTED HISTORY 

worlds to conquer, and hence got the 
New World idea in their heads. 

They decided to give us a trial here in 
the U. S. There was no room for them 
within the city limits of Jamestown, be- 
cause there it would have been required 
of them to attend the Church of Eng- 
land at least sixteen times per week. 
They thought of New Netherlands for a 
moment or two, but there they would 
run against the same snags they were 
bumping into in Holland. By gosh, they 
didn't know what to do. 

Finally they collected a lot of old fur- 
niture, blue plates, and other rubbish and 
sailed from Delft-Haven in a boat called 
the Speedwell. They were joined at 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Southampton, England, by the ship that 
has made more money for the Boston 
dealers in ancient furniture and cracked 
plates than any other craft that ever cut 
through green salt water. This boat was 
the Mayflower, and with it the Speedwell 
and the Pilgrims started out one beauti- 
ful morning, full of hope and spring 
water, for that was the strongest bever- 
age this crowd ever touched. On such 
an occasion as this the ordinary man 
would have hit one or two for luck, but 
the Pilgrims — well, I guess not. 

After putting out to sea they found 
that the Speedwell had lost all her speed 
on account of a leak she had carelessly 
brought with her, so the whole bunch of 

102 



TWISTED HISTORY 

hoboes — I should say Pilgrims — had to 
turn back and beach the leaking vessel. 
It is not strange to me that this boat was 
holey, considering the holy host it had 
on board and — but this is no time for 
jokes ; and puns, being cheap wit, are not 
to be indulged in by high-salaried his- 
torians such as myself. Pardon me, dear 
readers, and I will never do it again. 

As a result of the breakdown all the 
Pilgrims piled into the poor old May- 
flower with their household goods and 
chattels, and once again a start was made 
for the New World. They tried to 
reach the Jersey coast, but as very, very 
good luck for them would have it, they 

were driven, by a storm, from this sec- 
103 



TWISTED HISTORY 

tion of the U. S. and finally cast anchor 
off Cape Cod in Massachusetts. 

They happened to land at a place that 
is of no earthly good save as a summer 
resort (all places that are worthless, in our 
day, are used for summer places), so they 
crossed the bay and entered the sheltered 
harbor of Plymouth, as they named the 
place, because John Smith, the fellow who 
had the romantic experience with the In- 
dian princess in the last chapter, had given 
the locality that name before, and also be- 
cause they had seen Plymouth, England, 
last of all when they sailed toward the 
promised land. They landed on a large 
rock, so tradition goes, and thousands 

of travellers still go down to Plymouth 
104 



TWISTED HISTORY 

to see that rock. It is particularly famous 
because a brand of three-dollar pants was 
named " Plymouth Rock," and warranted 
not to rip, but this really has nothing to 
do with the history, and I should not have 
mentioned it here. The year of landing 
was 1620. 

The first governor of the Plymouth 
Company was John Carver. Besides being 
chosen to hold down the gubernatorial 
campstool he was also made superinten- 
dent of Sunday Schools, which, by the 
way, dear readers, was no mean job, as the 
whole of Plymouth was one religious body 
that observed Sunday School sessions 
each day of the year. 

They say that the good die young, and 
105 



TWISTED HISTORY 

perhaps that is why the company was 
deceased during the first winter spent in 
the U. S. They kept deceasing at such 
a rapid rate during the months of Janu- 
ary and February, 1621, that it looked 
as though tombstones would be the only 
relics of the Pilgrims, so in April they 
sent the Mayflower back to England for 
more stock and furniture. The people 
who came over on the second trip were 
not all of the same faith as the Pilgrims, 
and, as a result, Plymouth began to be- 
come more cosmopolitan, harboring folks 
of all sorts and conditions. 

After a growth of three years Plymouth, 
all in a bunch, forsook the Plymouth 

Trading Company and started in business 

106 



TWISTED HISTORY 

for itself. Each colonist was given a 
piece of land and a fence around it, and 
they were soon getting along nicely, thank 
you, in true New England style and 
thriftiness. 

About this time another religious fac- 
tion in England desired to get away from 
the land of royalty. They were called 
Puritans because they wished to purify the 
Church of England. In fact, they were 
purer than a certain widely advertised 
baking powder that is guaranteed to be 
" absolutely pure." They were too good 
for this world, so they decided to go to 
Massachusetts, and, in 1630, about one 
thousand persons, high and low — jack and 
the game — left England and sailed for 
107 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Massachusetts Bay. They carried with 
them the king's charter, and so undertook 
to govern themselves in the king's name. 
They landed at Salem, and the foxy 
settlers who already held that place and 
had it on a paying basis, told them that 
there were far better places than theirs 
and gently advised the newcomers to 
look for them. The Puritans took the 
hint and sailed down the coast to Boston 
harbor, landing at Charlestown. The 
U. S. navy-yard was not there at that 
time, so they landed safely, but only a few 
considered the place O. K., and many of 
them crossed the Charles river and set 
up shop on an inviting peninsula. They 
called the place Boston, and proceeded 

108 



TWISTED HISTORY 

to cut streets and lay out house lots. 
All historians, until I entered the field, 
have claimed that the Puritans were 
straight and nothing crooked could be 
proved against them, but I challenge this 
claim — how about the streets of Boston ? 
If they were not laid out by a cross-eyed 
C. E., then a vaudeville artist must have 
done the trick, and a contortionist at that. 
I leave it to you if I haven't a right to 
this opinion. How about it? 

The Boston settlers had come to stick. 
They meant business with a capital B, 
and they made Boston the capital B of 
that locality. All the governing was 
done from that place, and all the farmers 
who lived in Dorchester, Roxbury and 
109 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Chelsea had to pull on their boots and 
come to town whenever it was time to vote. 

The colony contained every kind of 
artisan necessary to provide for the wants 
of a community. There were in the 
crowd bricklayers, shoemakers, butchers, 
bakers and candlestickmakers. Beings 
near the salt water, several of the more 
roving took up fishing and boatbuilding 
as trades, and before many moons Boston 
was getting along swimmingly, even 
though the swell Back Bay district was 
not then in existence. 

They decided to cut the king and his 
power out of their colony. John Win- 
throp, after whom Winthrop Beach, the 
Coney Island of Massachusetts, was 



TWISTED HISTORY 

named, was the first governor of the 
settlement, and he was a daisy. There 
are about twenty John Winthrops in the 
Boston directory to-day, but I venture to 
say that our John cut more ice in his day 
— I must say for the benefit of those of 
my gentle readers who do not understand 
"street English," that John was not in 
the ice business, but claimed farming as 
his trade — than do any eight of the 
present-day Johns. 

For ten years the colony grew rapidly, 
and in this time twenty thousand English 
came over and settled in and about Bos- 
ton. They came to New England to 
escape a harsh church and harsher laws, 
although I, for one, cannot see why their 



TWISTED HISTORY 

own religious views and harsh laws were 
not as bad as the ones they tried to shake. 
In this case, it seems to me, the cure was 
as bad as the disease. 

The success of the Massachusetts 
colony inspired many Englishmen who 
were looking for large estates for nothing, 
and before many years had passed nearly 
all of New England was more or less 
settled. Maine had been started before 
Mass., and after the latter proved suc- 
cessful New Hampshire and Vermont 
began to get popular and populated. 
The green fields of Connecticut also drew 
a goodly bunch of settlers, and the 
inhabitants of this section of the U. S. 
soon developed a reputation for crafti- 



TWISTED HISTORY 






ness. It has been said by some that the 
first bunco steerer was a Connecticut 
man, but we have no proof of this. Just 
because some people in this State made 
nutmegs on a turning lathe, all sorts of 
fairy tales about these people have arisen. 
As for myself, I have been in Connecticut 
many times and I have never been beaten 
but once — that was because I bet on 
Princeton instead of Yale at the New 
Haven House. Those were happy col- 
lege days ; ah, those happy days, so free 
from care, but never free from debts. 
How often did a game wipe out a bank 
account and how often was the old dress 
suit hung up to get the price to go down 
to New York. But there — enough about 
113 



TWISTED HISTORY 

the halcyon days at old Nassau with its 
pure air and its proximity to Trenton. 

Rhode Island was first settled at Prov- 
idence by Roger Williams, a preacher 
exiled from Massachusetts. He named 
the town Providence because he claimed 
it was provided as a place of refuge by 
God. If Roger could see the place now 
and spend a few days in his old town he 
would agree that Providence must have 
forgotten the place long ago. 

And so, gentle readers, you have a 
mild idea of New England before it 
really had a good start. The soil was 
rich and the settlers were crafty— hence 
the flourishing N. E. to-day. 

Thanks, Yanks 

114 




Spouted to all those of the Congregation who had 
managed to keep awake. 




CHAPTER VI 

BILLY PENN AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS 

BOUT the time the Puritans 
were beginning to become im- 
portant and do business in 
England and New England there ap- 
peared on the scene of the religious play 
a new character. The fellows name was 
George Fox ; he played a serious part 
and called himself a Friend. He spoke 
like an ancient prophet and if he was 
alive to-day he would no doubt hire the 
Madison Square Garden and hold a sanc- 
timonious circus, as do present-day pro- 
117 



TWISTED HISTORY 

phets — but some prophets are in the busi- 
ness for profit and some — but pardon me 
again, learned readers, for punning. I 
really cannot understand why a great 
historian, with a nine and seven-eighths 
brain, such as I am, should resort to puns 
to hold your interest, but really I must 
confess my weakness and they show up 
in every chapter, gol ding ! I promise I 
will not do it again, in this chapter, so 
avaunt, puns. Begone ! 

Returning to Fox, the Friend, be it 
said that he had a lot of new-fangled 
ideas tucked under his broad-rimmed hat, 
and in those days he was looked upon as 
a first-class freak. He taught that there 
was no church except in the meeting to- 
ns 



TWISTED HISTORY 

gether of friends. When these friends 
did get together in meeting they waited 
until the spirit moved them and then 
arose and spouted white talk that was 
supposed to do a heap of good to all 
those of the congregation who had man- 
aged to keep awake. Some of their talk 
was far from white and took on a yellow 
hue, for they often berated the condition of 
the law and religion of England, but the 
creed of the Friends, being peculiar, be- 
came popular and Fox soon found that 
he had a pile of followers. 

Fox said that there was no difference 
between men in rank and he could not 
be coaxed — by a bayonet or otherwise — 

to remove his lid when in the presence 

119 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of royalty or greatness. Not on your 
life! If he met Cromwell at one of the 
London restaurants or night lunch carts 
he would keep his hat securely located 
on the spot where he had placed it in the 
morning and say, ''Oliver, hello! What 
are you going to eat?" and when the 
waiter yelled out " Ham and — " or " Draw 
one," for Cromwell, Fox would say, " I'll 
take the same," just to show that one 
man's digestive powers were as good as 
another's. 

The Friends were driven from pillar to 
post. After each meeting held by this 
sect they spent the night in the station 
house. They never failed to find the 
police cab waiting to conduct them to 



TWISTED HISTORY 

green light Number 4 or 8, according to 
the ward in which their gatherings were 
held. 

This was discouraging, so one morning 
after they had been bailed out of the jug 
they got together, had a smoke talk 
(without the smoke, for one of the laws 
of the Friend religion is, " Never do any- 
thing that is pleasant"), chartered a boat 
and sailed away for New England. Here 
they met the frigid stare. The ice pitcher 
was passed out to them without ringing 
for it, so they had to skedaddle from that 
section of the U. S., double-quick. 

About this time a rich nobleman — there 
were such things in those days of old — 
named William Penn, became intoxicated 



TWISTED HISTORY 

with the doctrines of Fox, and soon after 
he began to feel his oats of Quaker- 
ism — hence the well-known and popular 
" Quaker Oats " — he came into possession 
of a strip of land in New Jersey, through 
a debt, and, having no other use for the 
land, he decided to plant a few Quaker 
colonies in the place. Now, Penn had 
never seen his piece of property, which 
was in West Jersey, and he had never 
run against any of the sand-burrs and mos- 
quitoes which that section of our great 
and glorious country furnishes, so he can- 
not be said to have had a grudge against 
any of the innocent Friends that he per- 
suaded then to settle down on and try to 
farm his preserves, but, as the Friends 



TWISTED HISTORY 

were what would be called " easy" in our 
day, they made no kick when they saw 
the country, but set to work to cultivate 
and populate it. 

They started farms and towns, and be- 
fore long the Jersey sweet potatoes and 
watermelons were about the best things 
in this line that had ever happened, and 
all that the Quaker families in that vicin- 
ity needed was a market for their products. 
Now, as William Penn was an all-around 
heavyweight, generous sort of a long- 
haired, broad-brimmed, good fellow, he 
decided to plant a new town just across 
the river from Camden, New Jersey, and 
after he had persuaded the king to grant 

him a farm in that locality — on account 

123 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of a little bill that his majesty owed 
Perm's father — he sailed away with a 
fresh bunch of Quakers in 1682, and after 
making a couple of stops at Newcastle, 
Delaware, and Chester, Pa., he sailed up 
the river to Philadelphia and laid the 
corner-stone of that city where the Ridge- 
way House now stands. 

For two years Penn stayed in Philadel- 
phia — which, I think, is the record ; for 
how a man could stay any longer is more 
than my imaginative brain can guess — 
and his main object was to mosey up to 
the right side of the Indians. He paid 
them for all the land he took from them 
— at the rate of one cent per front mile, 

eight miles deep, which is about the price 

124 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of real estate in Brookline, Mass., to-day 
(God forgive me for lying) — and he also 
gave them presents. Just what the pres- 
ents were we historians do not know, but 
some say they were diamonds, pearl 
brooches and gold hat-pins. I say they 
were overshoes, nail-files and photographs 
of Westminster Abbey, but of course (I 
may as well confess) none of us know 
just what he did give. You can gamble, 
however, that he did not give away very 
much, because he was a Quaker, and — 
but I went to a Quaker school once, and 
had to attend meeting every Wednesday, 
so I am prejudiced. 

Penn named his farm, which consisted 
of many square miles, Pennsylvania, and 
125 



TWISTED HISTORY 



he also designated the most unaccommo- 
dating railroad in the U. S. by the same 
name. 

The Quakers are said to be modest, 
but Billy Penn must have been an excep- 
tion, for every other thing you see. in 
Philadelphia has a Penn label on it, such 
as Penn Square, the Pension Office, 
Waterman's Fountain Pen, etc., to say 
nothing of the statue on the tower of the 
Public Buildings. (These buildings, in- 
stead of being called the city hall, are 
called the Public Buildings because it is 
claimed the public was fleeced until the 
shears cut into its hide when the place 
was built, and as a result several Quaker- 
town millionaires are said to be carrying 
city money in their pockets as they stroll 
126 



TWISTED HISTORY 



through the mussy lobby of the Walton 
Hotel ; but here, I must not get so close 
to personalities in my history, because I 
am a great historian, even though some 
of my ancestors were touched for appro- 
priations for the great white building 
that stands in front of Broad Street Sta- 
tion, and, worst of all, they came up with 
the coin. (Patriotic but easy, hey ?) 

Anyway, Penn was a pretty good sort, 
and all the Friends were sorry when he 
left them and joined the great meeting in 
1 701. He was as slow as molasses run- 
ning from a bung hole on a cold December 
morning, and he imbued his tortoise na- 
ture into Philadelphia so deeply that that 
town now boasts of its ability to keep 
two years behind the times without any 
127 



TWISTED HISTORY 

effort. They have never been able to 
purify the air of the languor that Penn left 
with them, and I have been told that a 
man was killed there a few days ago by 
being run over by a hearse, but I cannot 
vouch for this, as my only authority is a 
friend of mine who is in vaudeville. He 
calls himself a New Yorker, although he 
was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, and he 
may be biassed, If you have ever been in 
the town of drowsiness, however, you will 
agree with me that such a fatal event as 
the one just mentioned is highly probable. 

In 1703 the Penn colony divided itself 
into two sections, and called one Dela- 
ware and the other Pennsylvania. 

As for New Jersey 

Well, the least said of N. J. the better. 

123 




Yours of last year just received. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE LUCKY THIRTEEN 



HE English planted their colo- 
nies and vegetables on the 
Atlantic seaboard and rapidly 
made good in the U. S. They pushed 
toward the interior of the continent, too, 
and populated the country that reaches 
from the Atlantic half way to Chicago 
and St. Louis. 

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Con- 
necticut and Rhode Island were oc- 
cupied by the goody-goody Puritans, 
and some others who were not so good. 
131 



TWISTED HISTORY 

It did not take much effort in those 
days to be a real bad man in Connec- 
ticut, however, as you can see when I 
quote one of the old blue laws of that 
State. " No one shall eat mince pies, 
dance, play cards, or play any in- 
strument of music except the drum, 
trumpet or jewsharp." If a man played 
any one of these instruments nowadays 
for pleasure's sake, he would be looked 
upon as a fit candidate for the nut 
farm ; so you can see that the laws of 
olden times were somewhat at variance 
with up-to-date ideas. 

Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Dela- 
ware claimed the Quakers as their 
population, and the Dutchmen, who 
132 



TWISTED HISTORY 

could not make a living in Holland, 
had settled down in New York, where 
better luck attended them than the old 
country could afford, and as a result 
you will find that most of the good 
old Dutch names that were handed 
down to present-day New Yorkers were 
accompanied by money and real estate 
that make the four hundred and one — 
the one is a new debutante with a frigid 
million, who just landed — about the 
wealthiest bunch that ever attended 
Weber and Field's, and dined at Sherry's, 
after the show. 

Maryland was begun by Lord Balti- 
more, a Catholic, who found the streets 
of London too hot to walk on, and the 
133 



TWISTED HISTORY 

church seats of the English metropolis 
too warm for regular usage. The colony 
was continued by a family named the 
Calverts, and everything went along as 
smoothly as could be expected at that 
time. They raised tobacco for the 
English trade and prospered much, for 
England, ever willing to add new vices 
to her already long list, took the smok- 
ing habit right into her midst and con- 
sumed, each year, a quantity of tobacco 
that would have made the tobacco trust 
declare extra dividends each week, if they 
had been in existence at the time. 

Virginia, the home of the negro, the 
colonial mansion with white pillars be- 
decking its front, and plug-cut smoking 
134 



TWISTED HISTORY 

fodder, had been settled by the English, 
as had also the Carolinas and Georgia. 

If you will count over the colonies I 
have mentioned, you will, perhaps, find 
that they tally twelve, but if you will 
read and count again you will see that 
there are thirteen — I am a regular Sam 
Lloyd as well as a great historian — and 
these were the thirteen original colonies 
that stood together so well and laid 
the cornerstone of our future happiness. 
These people were the nervy, hard- 
working folks of real mettle that were 
responsible for us and our homes. They 
laid the foundations on which we have 
built the great country of which we are 
now so proud, and whenever we think 

135 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of them we should take off our hats, 
if the weather is not too cold, and give 
a triple cheer. I am not cheering now, 
but I have my hat off ; still, I suppose 
any fool knows enough to keep his 
head uncovered while in the privacy 
of his own den — here I am wandering 
again, like a tramp instead of an edu- 
cator of the people, and while wandering 
is better than punning, still it is not 
becoming for a historian to ramble too 
much, so I will cut it out. 

Back to the colonies ! 

The thirteen colonies were thirteen 

distinct governments, but they had also 

a great deal in common. They were 

English colonies ; they obeyed English 

136 



TWISTED HISTORY 

laws; they called the king of England 
their king ; they traded with each other 
both by land and water. Letters and 
newspapers were sent back and forth, 
but things were not done so rapidly 
as they are now. Neither the mails 
nor the males were as swift as to-day 
finds them. It was no cinch to go from 
New York to Boston or Providence. 
The Fall River Line, that system of 
boarding house boats, was not in ex- 
istence then, and if you got to Prov- 
idence in three days it was because 
luck and wind were blowing your way. 
Steam had not been patented at that 
time, and sail boats were the only crafts 
that plowed the salt. 
137 



TWISTED HISTORY 

The mails were carried on horseback, 
and if one ever got a letter that was 
addressed to him he was not only de- 
lighted, but also surprised. It was very 
common to see business letters beginning 
— u Yours of last year just received, and 
in reply would say, etc." — so you can 
see that our new, rapid deliveries are 
somewhat more handy than the old, 
never-get-there method is. 

The first newspaper was published in 
Boston in 1704. It was called the 
" News-Letter " and consisted, mostly, 
of advertisements such as "Phineas Po- 
dunk has lost his old blue cow. He 
misses her and her milk so much that 

he will give the finder, who leaves her 

138 



TWISTED HISTORY 

at his back gate, a shilling and a piece of 
squash pie." 

Little by little the colonies began to 
pull together, and as troubles arose in 
the form of Indians, etc., they soon saw 
that some sort of a union was needed 
for the good of them all. The New 
England bunch got together after a 
certain dose of Indian and decided to 
repel future attacks in unison. They 
figured that bulk repulsion was more 
deadly than fighting by the ounce. New 
Yorkers also had the same idea hatching 
in the incubator of public opinion and a 
full — " complete " would, perhaps, be a 
less confusing word to use in this con- 
nection — congress was held in Albany in 
139 



TWISTED HISTORY 

1754, to discuss the plan of having one 
government for the entire thirteen col- 
onies. Ben Franklin, the well-known 
kite-flier, electrician, philosopher, printer, 
publisher, editor and dealer-out of good 
advice for young men, was one of the 
delegates from Pennsylvania, and he 
submitted a plan whereby the colonies, 
as a whole, should be presided over by a 
President, and each colony should have 
a governor and house of representatives. 
The plan of Ben was all right. In 
substance we use his plan now, without 
paying royalties to anybody, but the 
English government said " Nay ! Nay ! " 
when it was tendered for inspection, and 

the separate colonies cried "Gadzooks ! 
140 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Nit!" when it was placed before them 
for consideration. England thought it 
gave the colonies too much power, and 
the colonies thought it gave England too 
much power — so you can see politics were 
about as many-sided then as now. 

Each day found the colonists getting 
sorer and sorer with England. They 
were being squeezed for money until they 
could hear their bones crack. Every 
method the English could think of to 
get a cent or two out of the husky Ameri- 
cans was used until it frazzled at the 
ends. The trusts of to-day are charity 
institutions compared with England in 
her palmy days. The poor man, nowa- 
days, does not have to buy oil every time 
141 



TWISTED HISTORY 

its price soars a cent or two higher, but 
if the poor man, then, did not come up 
he was compelled to swallow the steel 
toothpick known as a bayonet. 

Them was hard days, them was ! 

Just to give you a few tips as to how 
the English rubbed it into the colonists, 
I will explain some of the money-making 
stunts thought out by the grafters. 

All furs and hides brought in by hunt- 
ers had to be sent to England. Now 
and then the skin of a deceased cow was 
allowed to the animal's owner and right- 
ful heir, for shoes, but only now and then. 
When the furs were sent to England to 
be sold the hunter had to pay a tax at 

the time of shipment, and also at the mo- 

142 



TWISTED HISTORY 

ment of its arrival in England. Then he 
had to come up with a commission for 
the fellow who sold it in London. When 
the money was sent him he had to fork 
out another tax when the check left the 
pier, and once again when it arrived in 
the U. S. This made the skin of a bear, 
for instance, net the hunter one shilling 
and tu'pence, to say nothing of the buck- 
shot and powder. This same law ap- 
plied to fish, pitch, turpentine, tar, ship 
timbers, and about four thousand other 
articles which I do not care to mention 
because I have not got the time. 

Encouraging, hey ! 

Besides this, England forbade the colo- 
nies to carry on manufacturing. For in- 
143 



TWISTED HISTORY 

stance, they allowed them to take iron 
ore from the mines. That meant hard 
work and callous hands, so, of course, 
that was just the kind of work for the 
Americans. Anything that coaxed out 
perspiration and afforded backache was 
good enough for them. But when they 
got the ore out into daylight — that was 
another story. Then it slid into the 
hands of the English. If the colonists 
wanted anything made of iron, they had 
to send the ore to England ; they coughed 
up a tax when it left America, and an- 
other when it reached the old country — 

the old country, as they used to 

call it. They paid English merchants 
for carrying it, English manufacturers 

144 



TWISTED HISTORY 



for working it, and English merchants 
for bringing back the finished product, 
not mentioning about eight other taxes 
and costs concerning which I have been 
unable to find any records. 

In this way England's government and 
merchants were getting rich fast at the 
expense of the colonies, and they took 
good care that the colonies were not al- 
lowed to trade with any other countries. 
English officers kept house and sharp 
lookout at all the ports, and strictly en- 
forced all laws and collected all taxes. 
None escaped ; each had to come up for 
the benefit of the royal pocketbook. 

The colonists were rapidly getting tor- 
rid beneath their neckwear, and the 
145 



TWISTED HISTORY 

swearing of vengeance was getting to be 
very popular on street corners and gro- 
cery stores until — well, it seems to me 
that there is going to be a scrap before 
many more chapters of this historical 
novel. 

What do you think about it, placid 
peruser ? 



146 




Paul Revere flung himself into the saddle and 
rode away. 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE BEGINNING OF THE SCRAP 

[ROM 1756 to 1763 England and 
France were having a set-to in 
the shape of the Seven Years' 
War. The French and Indian War was 
part of this scrap, and when peace finally 
came England was mistress of the Amer- 
ican colonies and that was about all she 
did have. She was completely broken, 
and the expense of her rash expenditure 
of gunpowder, bullets and blood put her 
on her uppers for fair; so she cast her 

weather eye about for a tonic that would 

149 



TWISTED HISTORY 

build up her more than run-down finances. 
Bump! 

Down fell the axe of taxation upon 
the neck of the easy colonists! It was 
called the Stamp Act and it was a won- 
derful piece of mechanism. 

To-day we have trading-stamps that 
rob buyers and sellers, but the Stamp 
Act of 1765 had the present-day scheme 
whipped to a custard, to use an expres- 
sion that emanated from the mind of a 
modern humorist. It robbed everybody 
and gave no premiums. The law stated 
that all deeds, contracts, bills-of-sale, 
wills, mortgages, telegrams and a thou- 
sand etceteras were illegal unless they 
had stamps affixed thereto. These stamps 
150 



TWISTED HISTORY 



were for sale in the colonies ''between 
the hours of i a. m. and 12.60 a. m. at 
the British box-office." Their cost was 
1 1 shillings, 6 pence per, which in real 
money means about two dollars and 
eighty-seven cents. 

It was no cinch to sell a pair of chick- 
ens for $1.06 and then have to paste 
stamps on them the face value of which 
was more than a fresh five-dollar bill. 
It was an outrage, said the colonists, and 
they would not stand for it, so there! 

In October, 1765, delegates from the 
colonies met in New York and decided 
that the Stamp Act was just one roast 
too much and they drew up a declaration 
of rights. They declared that they would 
151 



TWISTED HISTORY 

not use the stamps and they did not. As 
a result the Stamp Act was removed to 
the attic storeroom of the House of 
Lords, and it was up to Sir Reginald 
Doolittle and Lord Percival Needthe- 
money to invent some new instrument 
of torture. This was victory number 

ONE FOR THE COLONISTS. 

The colonies compelled Parliament, 
that collection of blue-bloods that had 
nothing but ancestors and mortgages, to 
remove one tax after another until the 
tax on tea remained alone. You must 
remember that most of the Americans 
then were nothing more nor less than 
Englishmen, and, then as now, tea was 
the great national stimulant of Britain. 
152 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Beer suits the German, chianti pleases 
the Dago, any old drink that thrills is 
good enough for the American, and tea 
tickles the palate of the Englishman 
(hence the price to pay for Shamrock L, 
II. and III.). So you can see Parliament 
thought it knew its business when it 
chose tea for the final tax; but, for the 
first and last time — ahem — in the history 
of the doings of that learned body, it 
made a mistake that eventually caused 
England to lose the largest tract of real 
estate that it ever had its hands on. 

The foxy colonists were ready for them 

on the tea question, however. They 

refused to buy it. Grandma Perkins, 

spinster Agatha Skinner and others had 

153 



TWISTED HISTORY 

to go without their afternoon and even- 
ing cups of cheer. No more dissipation 
for them because of the decision of the 
colonists. Patent medicine advertise- 
ments began to fill the newspapers read- 
ing "Tea Habit Cured. Be patriotic 
and swear off drinking tea. We have 
the cure. Can be given on the quiet to 
your old maid sister Rebecca or any 
other aged female of your household. 
Sent postpaid for $1.00, or a bushel of 
oats," etc., and England soon began to 
feel the result of this concerted effort on 
the part of the colonists and the chemists. 
The East India Company, a tea con- 
cern in which the king was a heavy 
stockholder, had, in their warehouse, 
154 



TWISTED HISTORY 

seventeen million pounds of tea that they 
planned to sell in the colonies for three 
times what it was worth, plus a tax of 
eighteen cents per pound. As you can 
see, this would have extracted a large 
lump of ready coin from the colonists and 
allowed the king to squander dividends 
in 24-horse-power automobiles ; but the 
Americans, in concert, placed their index 
fingers on the left sides of their nasal ap- 
pendages, and quothed, " Not on your 
life, Mr. King and your company. You 
can't work us. Take back your teas." 

When the East India Company shipped 

their breakfast Oolong to America the 

vessels that carried it were promptly 

twisted about in their courses as they 

155 



TWISTED HISTORY 

entered most of the ports along the coast 
and given a swift push toward the ware- 
house. " Back to the home grounds," 
cried the colonists, and the captains 
backed. 

The royalist governor at Boston, how- 
ever, tried to enforce the landing of the 
tea at that port. The Bostonians would 
not allow it. Even the Back Bay crowd 
denied themselves five o'clock social 
events and rebelled against the landing 
of their favorite beverage. 

Gee ! It was certainly exciting for 
three weeks or more while the governor 
was trying to land the tea and the colo- 
nists were trying to point the rudders of 

the Oolong ships eastward. 
156 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Indignation meetings were held, day 
and night, in Faneuil Hall, one of Bos- 
ton's places of interest (now a meat 
market and vegetable shop), and each 
time a meeting was held there appeared 
a larger crowd than the time before, until 
one night, in December, it was found 
necessary to cluster in Old South Church 
in order to have more room and, also, to 
add one more to the thousand historical 
points in Bostontown — that you can see, 
either by trolley or on foot, at fifty cents 
per head. 

Together with the crowd there gath- 
ered twilight on this crisp December 
evening. Washington Street was thronged 
with indignant New Englanders, and the 
157 



TWISTED HISTORY 

homespuns glistened under the electric 
lights of Newspaper Row. The bulletin 
boards were kept busy showing up the 
latest tea trouble. In the church on 
the corner of Milk Street it was all ex- 
citement. A messenger from the gov- 
ernor brought the news that his honor 
had made his final refusal, in blue ink, 
and the tea must be landed. 

Eye-witnesses tell me that Pandemo- 
nium reigned, although I must confess 
that I would not recognize this gentle- 
man should I meet him to-morrow. I had 
always believed that Sam Adams held 
the chair on this great occasion, but, per- 
haps, his nickname was Pandemonium. 

Who knows ? I don't. Neither do you. 

158 



TWISTED HISTORY 

At any rate, Sam was there, and being 
a nervy youth he sprang to his feet (just 
where they were I do not know for a cer- 
tainty), and cried out in a loud voice, 
saying, " This meeting can do nothing 
more to save the country." Then a gal- 
lery god yelled, " Hurrah for Griffin's 
Wharf ! " — and they were off. 

At Griffin's Wharf were the junks that 
carried the tea over which there was such 
a commotion. 

Just outside of the church, at this 
moment, there arose a war-whoop that 
cracked several windows in that vicinity 
— at least I have been told so by several 
glaziers in Boston, who claim that their 
grandfathers replaced the damaged glass- 
159 



TWISTED HISTORY 

ware ; for you must know that every na- 
tive Bostonian has an ancestor who did 
something in the olden times ; why, dear 
readers, I know a bootblack who used to 
launder my shoes every morning when 
I was in Boston — and had the price 
— who claimed that his great-great- 
grandfather learned how to enjoy corned 
beef and cabbage two weeks before 
the Revolutionary War. Just think of 
it! 

But I believe I was talking about tea 
and not New England dinners, so let us 
return to the Old South Church. When 
the contents of this sacred edifice heard 
the whoop that was raised without, some 

said " Harvard students," and some said 
1 60 



TWISTED HISTORY 

"Indians." They all piled out into the 
street. 

It seems that a masquerade party was 
letting out at just the moment that the 
unfavorable news came from the gov- 
ernor, and when the masked men, who 
had gone as Indians from the 9th ward 
Republican club, heard of the governor's 
verdict they made a bee-line for Griffin's 
Wharf. As they were making this line 
of the busy insect, the crowd poured out 
of Old South and followed, and thus the 
Boston Tea Party, as this event was 
called, was one of the best attended 
social affairs of that year in Boston. 

The wharf that Griffin owned was 

black with people and the Indians 

161 



TWISTED HISTORY 

swarmed over the tea ships. Each had 
tomahawks and they were used to good 
advantage on the tea chests. In less 
than five minutes Boston harbor was a 
pot of cold tea, so quickly did the con- 
tents of the hated chests leave their 
receptacles. It was a sight that I have 
never seen now, then, before or since. 
It was simply gorgeous, if I may use the 
expression. AND THIS WAS VIC- 
TORY NUMBER TWO FOR THE 
COLONISTS. 

When Parliament heard of the Tea 
Party it was sore indeed. They got 
busy and made a new law, as was their 
custom whenever soreness overtook them. 

This law forbade Boston to load or un- 

162 



TWISTED HISTORY 

load any ships until the people of that 
town bagged their trousers by getting 
down on their knees and apologizing, 
and emptied their pockets by paying for 
the tea that had been tossed to the 
fishes. 

This law was a solar plexus blow to 
the prosperity of the colony and also the 
primary cause of the war that was re- 
sponsible for the "Daughters of the Rev- 
olution." A British fleet was anchored 
in Boston Harbor and a regiment of red- 
coated soldiers patrolled the streets of 
the town, trying their best to look nifty 
and handsome as they twirled their 
bamboo canes and held their noses in 

the air by means of the cords on their 

163 



TWISTED HISTORY 

dinky little caps. England meant to 
enforce the laws she had made, and I do 
not blame the Bostonians for getting a 
trifle enraged. 

General Gage, the royalist governor 
of Massachusetts, was leader of the 
British troops and he marched them up 
and down the Common to protect the 
city from its inhabitants. There was not 
much excitement in this, and Gage, hop- 
ing to get his picture in this history of 
mine, planned to march, one bright, 
moonlighted night, to Concord, where the 
colonists had stored their gunpowder and 
other deadly paraphernalia. 

When the eventful night came Paul 
Revere, a gentleman chosen because his 
164 



TWISTED HISTORY 

name rhymes with "hear" — ('Listen, my 
children, and you shall hear') — flung 
himself into his saddle and rode away at 
neckbreaking pace from Boston to Con- 
cord, telling all the people that the Brit- 
ish were marching toward the arsenal, 
or whatever they called the storehouse 
that contained the death-dealing dust. 
Hence when Gage and his troops reached 
Lexington they found a bunch of pa- 
triots lined up on the common and only 
too willing to hand over their powder and 
bullets. Why should Gage march on 
to Concord and steal the ammunition, 
when these patriots were willing to send 
it to him — all they had and on the fly, at 
that ? This is a question I cannot an- 
165 



TWISTED HISTORY 

swer ; all I know is that only a few of the 
English soldiers stopped in Lexington- — 
these are there yet — and those that were 
left went on to Concord, where they pro- 
ceeded to destroy the military stores. 
None of the jewelry stores were touched. 
I know this because there were no jew- 
elry stores in town. 

While they were enjoying themselves 
in this work of destruction they heard 
shots in the distance, and remembering 
they had left some of their number to 
guard Concord Bridge they hustled in that 
direction to find that the American min- 
ute-men — so-called because they were 
ready to fight without the usual two 
weeks' notice and also because they would 

1 66 



TWISTED HISTORY 

rather kill an Englishman every minute 
than earn gold dollars in the same length 
of time — were making the redcoat guards 
look like crimson porous plasters. In 
other words, the colonial militia was 
making short work of the king's troops, 
and this was the beginning of the Revo- 
lutionary War. 

The Britishers retreated toward Boston 
and the colonists, back of stone fences, 
made it one of the hottest trips ever 
taken over the Concord road, before or 
since. 

Thus was the great game for liberty 

beofun and the score stood 2 to o in favor 

of the colonist team. The news spread 

rapidly and patriots began to pour into 

167 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Cambridge. The old town looked as 
busy and bustling as it does on a Har- 
vard-Yale football day and every availa- 
ble field was Soldiers' Field on that mem- 
orable 20th of April. 

Look out for more trouble in the next 
chapter. 



168 




Our old friend George Washington started in 
to make himself felt. 



CHAPTER IX 



HOT TIMES 



^wpS|HINGS looked very warm in 

j||fe Massachusetts and the inhabi- 

: •••••• : ^ tants of that colony were wise 

to the fact. They knew that trouble was 

brewing about as fast as beer is brewed 

in Milwaukee. For this reason they sent 

a letter to the Continental Congress that 

was being held in Philadelphia and asked 

them to take charge of the army that was 

gathering in Cambridge. Congress chose 

George Washington to be the father of 

his country, because they thought his 
171 



TWISTED HISTORY 

face would look well on postage stamps. 
They made him General and Commander- 
in-Chief of the army of the United Col- 
onies, and he immediately set out for 
Cambridge to take charge of the troops. 
While on his way to the army that 
body of gentlemen was busy keeping up 
the reputation it had started on April 
19th. Having heard that the British 
meant to occupy Charlestown the colonists 
sent troops to that beautiful suburb and 
breastworks were thrown up on Breed's 
Hill. The next day the British saw the 
parapets, as I think fortifications are 
called, and how they hotfooted in that 
direction was a caution. They almost 
flew from the ferry boats that landed them 
172 



TWISTED HISTORY 

on Charlestown neck and rushed up the 
hill, on the top of which were perched the 
cool Americans. A reporter from one of 
the New York papers heard some one 
shout, " Don't shoot until you see the 
whites of their eyes," and at that moment 
a volley of flint-locks cut short the speech 
and cut down the English hill climbers. 
Again the redcoats tried to mount the 
grassy incline, and again they felt the 
warm bullets of the patriots trickling 
through their systems. 

By that time all the American ammu- 
nition had been inserted into English- 
men, and when the third attack came, 
it stayed, and the colonists moved on to 
give it room. The British took posses- 
173 



TWISTED HISTORY 

sion of Breed's Hill, and the battle of 
Bunker Hill had been fought. " Let 
them have the old hill ; we don't want it," 
cried a blue-jeaned American ; and, to tell 
the truth, it really was an unattractive 
hill. So much so, in fact, that we always 
speak of the battle as that of Bunker 
Hill instead of Breed's; and when a 
monument was erected some years ago, 
in honor of this altercation, it was placed 
on the apex of Bunker Hill, because that 
mound was the more beautiful. 

On the 3d of July, 1775, Washington 
took charge of the army, and after that 
business was done in the war office. 
George was a great leader, and he set 
to work to do a little leading that was 
174 



TWISTED HISTORY 

bound to show results. Meanwhile he 
kept his keen glance directed across the 
Charles River toward the British in Bos- 
ton. 

The English troops, however, had had a 
good taste of New England lead, and 
they manfully withheld any desire that 
they might have had to see blood flow, 
because experience had taught them that 
the chances were in favor of their own 
life fluid doing most of the flowing. For 
this reason they decided to shift opera- 
tions from Boston for a few days, so part 
of the fleet in the harbor was sent to Fal- 
mouth, Maine — now Portland, in the same 
State — and that town was burned, sacked, 
and wiped off the map in a jiffy. 
175 



TWISTED HISTORY 

After that the war began in earnest, 
and our old friend George Washington 
started in to make himself felt. On the 
i st of January, 1776, the flag of the United 
Colonies was hoisted, and it has flapped 
in the breezes of heaven ever since ; 
there has been no change except in the 
design, and there never will be. 

Hurrah ! 

In March Washington filled Dorches- 
ter Heights with men and cannon, the 
latter easily snatched from an English 
garrison at Fort Ticonderoga. He was 
going to touch up Boston a bit with 
some shot and shell that he felt he could 
spare, but General Howe saw him first, 

and, not wishing George to be so ex- 

176 



TWISTED HISTORY 

travagant all on his account, he, with his 
troops, bravely fled to the ships and 
sailed away. 

You have perhaps noticed by the dates 
I have given that we are now coming to 
the fourth of July, that day of firecrackers 
and busy hospitals. On this day, 1776, 
the Declaration of Independence was 
finished and signed by John Hancock, 
president of the Continental Congress, 
and fifty-five delegates from the colonies, 
with the result that the United States of 
America was started on her prosperous 
career, and also that the social position 
of descendants of the signers was assured 
forevermore. I think some of the de- 
scendants are prouder when they think of 
177 



TWISTED HISTORY 

the latter state of affairs than they are 
over the first; but I cannot say this for 
certain, only I have heard — but here, I 
am wandering again. If I am not careful, 
I will stroll out of history-writing into 
the compiling of " Who Thinks He Is 
Who in America," so I must keep to my 
subject more closely. 

After the Declaration of Independence 
was read in Philadelphia from the balcony 
of Independence Hall, the liberty bell, 
that wonderful bell that has travelled more 
miles than many drummers, pealed forth 
its tones until it could have been heard 
by boarders at the new Stratford-Bellevue 
had that magnificent hostelry been open 
for business at the time. So hard was the 
178 ' 



TWISTED HISTORY 



bell-rope tugged by the old bellman, owing 
to his enthusiasm on this occasion, that 
the old bell could not stand the strain, 
and soon afterward she was found to be 
cracked, which has made the relic all the 
more valuable. 

Ever since that the 4th of July has 
been celebrated as the birthday of the 
nation, and it has also given small boys 
the chance to vent some of the pent-up 
vivacity that every American boy is sup- 
posed to have. 

After the great Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the words of which every school- 
child of to-day learns by heart and then 
promptly forgets, the colonies began to 
make laws for themselves and call them- 
179 



TWISTED HISTORY 

selves States, and in this way the United 
States of America started business with 
the thirteen original States already men- 
tioned in this very complete history. 

Each State was independent of the 
others, but they stood together in the 
common effort to free themselves from 
England and the king. Each State con- 
tributed troops to the Continental army 
and each State was ready and anxious to 
say farewell to its English cousins and 
fathers. They had been under the heel 
of John Bull's boot long enough, and they 
wanted to be free ; best of all, they were 
willing to fight for freedom with a will. 

The colonists already had a good army 

and brave generals, but they sent Ben 

1 80 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Franklin to Europe to find more if possi- 
ble. In those days there were lots of 
young fellows who were looking for 
trouble — and also looking for a place in 
popular historical novels — so the colonists 
felt that Franklin, with his long hair and 
quiet manners, ought to be able to spot 
a few adventurers and entice them Amer- 
icaward. Sure enough, he did so and he 
gathered together such men as Kos- 
ciusko, Pulaski, Kalb, Steuben and La- 
fayette — men who differed from most 
men in public life to-day, inasmuch as 
they were looking for blood and not for 
blood-money. 

After the fighting got a good start the 
first real victory for the British was the 

181 



TWISTED HISTORY 

capture of New York City. Several 
years ago this city was in the possession 
of Anglomaniacs, but for a while after 
August 27th, 1776, she was under the 
control of real Englishmen. 

Ten thousand American soldiers were 
scattered over New York by Washington 
from his headquarters at Fulton Ferry. 
George was a good provider, and rather 
than have his men walk and carry heavy 
cannon on their backs he hired the ser- 
vices of the "L" and had that chari- 
table institution transport the recruits to 
Harlem Plains. Here he lodged his men 
most comfortably in the large and com- 
modious suites of the magnificent apart- 
ment houses which have so long been the 
182 



TWISTED HISTORY 

pride and joy of Harlemites. Ah! Those 
Harlem palaces ! Who has not read of 
the beautiful and roomy house-keeping 
flats of Harlem, with all their pure airi- 
ness and delightful views ? Ah — but I 
need say no more. You can understand 
why my enthusiasm runs away with my 
pen. Grand ! Grand ! 

And thus were the Americans en- 
camped. 

The British landed on Staten Island ; 
and thus the two armies remained for 
several days while General Howe and 
George Washington had a little confab. 
Old Howe suggested peace and George 
said, " Sure, but we want independence 
with it. Nothing else," whereupon Howe 
183 



TWISTED HISTORY 

replied, " Nothing else, then," and strode 
away in two-four time. 

That evening the whole English army, 
hired men, valets and all, crossed the bay 
and landed on Staten Island, just south of 
Brooklyn. They did not dare to go to 
Brooklyn, in the first place because no 
one cares to go to that town if he can 
help it, and in the second place because 
the American army was seated within the 
city limits. 

A line of hills served as a breastworks 
for the American troops, and while they 
were looking over the crests of these hills, 
a detachment of the British made a cir- 
cuitous march and began to pump bullets 

into them from the rear. It is not con- 

184 



TWISTED HISTORY 

sidered good form to be shot in the back 
in war, but after this scrimmage it was 
found that most of the damage had been 
done to the rear of the American troops ; 
but, under the circumstances, this was 
not disgraceful on this occasion. It was 
called the Battle of Long Island, and re- 
sulted in a victory for the English and 
the capture of New York. 

Just then a fog fell with a crash over 
the American troops, and, while i 4 -. stunned 
some, it killed none, and under cover of 
it Washington wisely backed his men to 
the New York side. He there found it 
was impossible to hold New York against 
the army, as well as the fleet that was an- 
chored in the bay, so he decided to retreat. 
185 



TWISTED HISTORY 

This retreat was aided by a certain 
American lady named Murray, who sent 
her servant to ask General Howe and his 
officers to spend a little while in her 
house, over cake and punch. Howe, be- 
ing an "Ancient and Honorable," ac- 
cepted the invitation — for the " Ancients," 
which is a social organization with beauti- 
ful uniforms, and on earth for the purpose 
of destroying food and punishing spiritu- 
ous liquors — never refuse anything in the 
banquet line — and while he was busy with 
his fork and glass Putnam slipped out of 
New York, untouched. 

It was during this retreat that a brave 
act was committed which is responsible 
for many statues in Connecticut. It 

186 



TWISTED HISTORY 

seems that one Nathan Hale, a young 
man from the Nutmeg State — so called 
because the wooden nutmegs I have men- 
tioned in another chapter were invented 
within its boundaries — volunteered to go 
within the English lines and find out 
what they were going to do. He went — 
and then he went to heaven, so we hope. 
Hence the statues. 

After that, disaster after disaster seemed 
to walk right up and introduce themselves 
to Washington and his army, and for a 
time it looked as though the raw Ameri- 
can troops were going to be cooked until 
they were well done ; but they were rare 
boys, and it took more hot times than the 
English had yet been able to show them 
187 



TWISTED HISTORY 

to roast this crowd, and, besides that, 
they saved their best victories until the 
end of the war, so that I might have a 
good climax for the last chapter of this 
volume. 

Get ready for the climax ! 



188 




Washington crossing the Delaware. 



CHAPTER X 

CROSSING THE ICE AND OTHER STUNTS 

3^p^l|HE Americans were greatly dis- 
|5§Si couraged at the succession of 
™ disasters that had made their 
appearance. After the hard luck at Long 
Island, defeat came on the run, and our 
honored leader, George Washington, 
seemed to be making a specialty of re- 
treating. He did nothing but side-step 
and back up until the heels of his soldiers 
were swelled beyond recognition ; but 
foxy Washington, the cherry tree muti- 
lator, had a little idea under his white 
191 



TWISTED HISTORY 

wig that he was only biding his time to 

spring on the unsuspecting English. 

After leaving New York, George 

marched his army to White Plains, with 

strict instructions to his men to keep 

their faces pointed toward the metropolis 

they were forsaking. He might have 

done this in order to be sure to see the 

English if they should follow ; then, 

again, he might have desired that the 

inhabitants of that section should think 

he was coming rather than going. I 

do not think that any historian, other 

than myself, has given this solution 

in his work, so this is what might be 

termed a scoop. At any rate, he reached 

White Plains, foot-sore, but heart-whole, 
192 



TWISTED HISTORY 

and proceeded to gather in a little long- 
needed rest. 

The rest consisted of but a few desul- 
tory winks, however, for Howe soon 
turned up and caused George to again 
show his valor as a retreater. In the first 
battles of the war George established a 
reputation as a retreater, but, before the 
Revolutionary War had gone into history 
— like mine — he began to go into the vic- 
tory business, and in that he proved him- 
self to be a first-rate repeater. 

He withdrew, to speak mildly, across 
the Hudson River into New Jersey and 
continued his withdrawal through that 
beautiful State, enjoying the scenery as 
he went. I shall never forget the words 
193 



TWISTED HISTORY 

he uttered as he passed through Hoboken; 
these can best be left to the imagination. 

The American army was closely fol- 
lowed by the British. Never have the 
English followed in our footsteps as they 
did on that occasion, and they tagged 
after our soldiers until they came to 
Trenton, where Washington crossed the 
river into Pennsylvania. Howe either 
liked Trenton with its hayseedy Inter- 
State Fair and other things, or he thought 
the campaign was over, for he went into 
winter quarters at once and made 
things as comfortable for himself and 
his men as was possible — in Trenton and 
vicinity. 

Washington gave Mr. Howe plenty of 
194 



TWISTED HISTORY 

time to get settled for the cold weather. 
He remained on the Pennsylvania side of 
the river and kept mum, but in the mean- 
time he inspected the guns and ammuni- 
tion of his men and saw to it that they 
were well heeled for destructive pur- 
poses. He had in mind a coup that 
would outcoup any coup he had couped 
in the past. It was one that he knew 
would take the chill of the frosty weather 
they were having off the redcoated 
British and Hessians. But he said noth- 
ing ; he only waited with the same en- 
thusiasm which he had used in his re- 
treats. George's enthusiasm was like the 
great lake in Yellowstone National Park 
— bottom could not be reached — and he 
195 



TWISTED HISTORY 

always carried hopefulness securely but- 
toned within his iron constitution. 

Ah ! A cold day was that memorable 
Christmas in 1776. The English army, 
stationed in New Jersey, spent the holi- 
day in joyfulness, full of good cheer and 
other intoxicants. The American army, 
also, rallied round the Christmas tree 
they had found in the woods, and enjoyed 
themselves generally. Had they had 
stockings they would have had lots of 
fun examining the sticks of candy and 
five-dollar gold pieces with which they 
would have been filled, but as bad luck 
would have it, the soldiers had no socks 
and hence no surprises. Washington 

treated each man, however, with a quart 

196 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of Great Western champagne, in the first 
place to warm them up for a little trip he 
had planned, and in the second place to 
show them that he was wise to the fact 
that bubbling fluid made in our own 
country was as good as any that came 
across from the hated other side. 

After the soldiers were filled with 
sparkling wine they began to effervesce 
with enthusiasm, and at an opportune 
moment our old chum George, the sooth- 
sayer, stepped into their midst, which 
was located somewhere between Trenton 
and Bristol, and raising his hat with his 
well-manicured right hand he also raised 
his voice, and said, " Gents. We have 
had a lovely time to-day. Now what do 
197 



TWISTED HISTORY 

you say to giving a beautiful bit of ex- 
citement to our friends across the river ? 
Get ready to give them a little hot lead 
to digest the hot punch they have been 
punishing all day. Boats will be waiting 
for you at the riverside to-night. Come 
one, come all. You are cordially invited 
to be present." And with the shout of 
" Aye, aye, sir," ringing in his ears he 
retreated to his headquarters. 

Chunks of ice filled the river. It 
looked as though the Knickerbocker Ice 
Company had dumped all its stock into 
the Delaware. I never saw so much ice 
between New Jersey and this country in 
all my life, and it reminded me of the act 

in Stetson's Uncle Tom's Cabin, No. 8, 

198 



TWISTED HISTORY 

where Eliza crosses the ice, accompanied 
by her mother, Little Eva. 

As Washington stood on the bank on 
that historical evening and gazed out 
over the frost-bitten waters he almost lost 
his nerve ; but gritting his teeth and turn- 
ing up his trousers, he jumped aboard 
of one of the boats and stood, like a 
statue, in the bow. Several artists who 
were on the railroad bridge drew the 
beautiful picture he presented, and many 
of these wonderful paintings now adorn 
the walls of patriotic citizens — and each 
one is the original. 

When Washington and his .army ar- 
rived at Trenton they surprised the enemy 

in their camp, and took one thousand of 

199 



TWISTED HISTORY 

them prisoners, which was a very sub- 
stantial Christmas present for the Ameri- 
can people at that stage of the game, and 
this little gift marked one of the turning 
points in the Revolutionary War. It was 
right here in Trenton that a period was 
placed after the big victories of the Eng- 
lish, and the American army began to do 
stunts that caused John Eull to finally go 
back to the old country and graze on his 
own pastures. 

After the Trenton episode, Washington 
marched to Princeton and there defeated 
and scattered the British army once again. 
The battle occurred just as the Princeton 
students were going to chapel, and it is 
needless to say that there was no service 



TWISTED HISTORY 

on that morning. Several old alumni 
that I have interviewed tell me that they 
never saw such a free-for-all, outside of a 
meeting of the senior class, in their lives as 
happened on the Princeton battlefield on 
the morning of January 3, 1777. Its equal 
was not again seen in Princetontown until 
the Yale-Princeton game of 1898, when 
Arthur Poe made his famous run. 

After Washington kicked a goal from 
the field the British team knew that it 
was good-day for them, so they ran off 
the field and hid in Potter's woods, while 
the American army triumphantly marched 
to Morristown, the town of New York tax- 
skippers, and went into winter quarters. 

In the spring of 1777 war was started 



TWISTED HISTORY 

up again. Time had been taken out by 
the timekeeper during the winter months, 
but before the ground thawed the slaugh- 
tering business was opened up once more 
at the old stand. 

After the scrap, which had been con- 
tinued to our next, had begun, winged 
victory flew from one side to the other. 
First she wobbled into the camps of the 
Americans, and then she staggered over to 
the English side ; but it was not until she 
perched on our tent-poles, after the sur- 
render of an English commander called 
Burgoyne, at Saratoga, on the steps of 
the United States Hotel, that the real 
turning-point of the war was reached. 
With this surrender came arms, powder 
and cannon, and we needed them badly. 



TWISTED HISTORY 

It gave courage to the American soldiers, 
and soreness to those who were watching 
the newspaper reports in England. 

Soon after this France came over to our 
side and promised to help us with her 
navy, and she stuck to her promise like 
the good fellow she has always been. 

General Clinton, who succeeded Howe 
as leader of the English, left Philadelphia 
one fine morning and started for New 
York. He was met at Monmouth Court 
House, New Jersey, however, and Wash- 
ington taught him a lesson that he never 
forgot ; and when Clinton and his cluster 
of cripples left the field that day he was 
heard to say, u Washington is a son-of-a- 
gun and a dabster at this game. Fudge ! " 

The English generals tried to establish 
203 



TWISTED HISTORY 

themselves in New York, and after that was 
found to be too exciting for them they at- 
tempted to cut New England from the 
rest of the colonies and hold that section of 
the United States for their own dear selves. 
But it was of no use. There was nothing 
doing for them, so they took another 
chance and aimed for the southern states. 
Here luck came their way, at first. 
The sunny south seemed to agree with 
their fighting blood, and they soon took 
Savannah without half trying, and held 
onto it, just as though it was worth having. 
The next town they gathered in and 
added to their collection of deserted vil- 
lages was Charleston, which went over to 
the English, theatres, licenses et al. (don't 
forget al.), in the spring of 1 780. Soon 
204 



TWISTED HISTORY 

after this Camden, S. C, joined the col- 
lection — and the Americans began to get 
tired of this snatching of townships 
almost before they could finish them. 

But Dame Fortune still refused to 
make love to us. Trouble came thick 
and fast, and about that time Benedict 
Arnold, the meanest man America had 
ever turned out, did his world-renowned 
stunt, of which we are all so heartily 
ashamed. There is no use saying much 
about it. He tried to give inside infor- 
mation to the English that would enable 
them to capture West Point, but Major 
Andre, who carried Arnolds letter, was 
caught and searched, and — well — poor 
fellow — that's about all. Andre was sus- 
pended and Arnold was expelled. 
205 



TWISTED HISTORY 

Well, patient readers, we are now near- 
ing the end of the war — and, incidentally, 
the end of this great history of mine. 
The benefits our nation has received from 
this war can never be estimated, nor can 
the benefits my history will donate to this 
same great people. Sometimes I shut 
my eyes and picture, in my mind's eye, 
George Washington and myself standing 
side by side, hand in hand. Then I gen- 
tly ponder, " Which of us shall have the 
higher pedestal in the Hall of Fame?" 
I will not repeat the answer I make to 
this question for fear you may think I 
am a boaster. 

After a lot of manoeuvring Washing- 
ton finally caught Cornwallis, the English 

general, in a trap at Yorktown, and a siege 
206 



TWISTED HISTORY 

of that town was begun in September, 
1 78 1. Each day the English received 
American shot and shell for breakfast, 
lunch and dinner, not to speak of a light 
supper of grapeshot and rocksalt after the 
theatre. Before long the English were 
so lavishly entertained that they began to 
show signs of fatigue, and on the 19th of 
October they were ready to wave the only 
white flag there was in the camp — a hand- 
kerchief, I believe it was — and they did so. 
Cornwallis surrendered his whole army to 
Washington at Yorktown on that bright 
fall morning, and the war was over. 

We then had our independence, and 
we still have it. I have not heard any 
reports lately that we were going to give 

it up. But if worst ever comes to worst 

207 



TWISTED HISTORY 

you can count on me. I will go out and 
defend my country any day in the week, 
if you will let me know a few weeks 
ahead so that I will not have any other 
engagements in the way. With my Bowie 
knife and Flobert rifle I will take my 
stand at the front — but I do not think I 
will be needed this week. I merely wanted 
you to know, before I leave you, that I 
am as brave as a fighter as I am as a his- 
torian, and it takes a valiant man to write 
a history like this one. 

Tell your friends about this book — it's 
a marvel. 

FINIS. 



208 



MAR 4 1304 



